Copyright ~ © 2009 : Vanessa FellowsThis tutorial, the intellectual copyrights and artwork are the property ofVanessa Fellows, Scrapz 'n BitzAn instructional copy of this tutorial may be printed out for personal use only. My tutorials may not be distributed for educational, marketing or for-profit usage in print, digital, or any other format. Nor may my tutorials be copied and/or uploaded to any other website withoutmy written consent.If you wish to share my tutorials with others in a learning group, please contact me via email (scrapznbitz@blueyonder.co.uk), for written permission to so .A link back when giving credit is not essential, but would be appreciated.This tutorial was written using PaintshopPro 9, but can be adapted for use by any of the PSP versions.PDF Tutorial - Download HereExternal filters required: SuperBladePro – Download trial version hereMaterials: Download here.Unzip the file and place my silver preset into your Superbladepro environments folder. Open the beads in PSP or alternatively make your own from my beads tutorial.The earlier versions of PSP used to have vector shapes like hearts, diamonds etc that you could draw, but PSP 9 doesn't have them, so please download the file called “Objecten.zip” from Mars' Jumbo PSP site. This link will take you the page and the file you need is the top right hand file in the lower section. Unzip the file and add it to your preset shapes folder.Celia Martin of Martin's Eclectic Adventures has some beautiful gems that are available for download from her PSP tubes section. Make sure you download a teardrop shaped gem for this tutorial and unzip it to your tubes folder.The aim of this tutorial is to create a beaded pin similar to the one that I made for my blogsites.Create a New image 1500 x 2000, 300ppi, transparent and set your Foreground colour to black and your background colour to white.Step 1 – From the left hand toolbar, select the Rectangle tool and with your cursor placed at x=100:y=200, draw out a rectangle that is 20px high x 1100px wide.Step 2 – Go to your layers palette and click on the “+” sign to expand the vector layer and then right click on “New Rectangle”. Select “Convert to path” from the drop down list and click on the pen tool on your left hand palette. Select “Edit” mode on the tools palette, hold down your Ctrl key and add a node to the middle of the short left hand side of the rectangle you created. This node will eventually form the very end point of your pin.Step 3 – Now to shape the pointed end of your pin. This is really quite simple. Click on the top left hand node and while holding the mouse button down, pull the node across to the right until it is at position x=200. Do the same thing with the bottom left hand node. Now right click on the new node that you added, select “Node Type” from the drop down list and then “Cusp”. Move each side of the arrow that runs through the node towards the right hand side – as per the screenshot below – to gently bend the line, thus creating a slightly curved end to your pin.Now click on “New Rectangle” in the Vector layer and select “Properties” from the drop down list. Then change the “Stroke” colour from Black to White, convert your layer to a Raster layer and rename it “Pin”Step 4 – Now we are going to create a circular ring that joins onto the end of the pin. With your foreground set to black and your background set to white, select “Elipse” from your vector tools and then the “Circle” from your tool palette. Draw out a circle that measures 60 x 60 px. Move it to the right hand end of your pin. Right click on “New Elipse” in the Vector layer and select “Properties” from the drop down list. Then change the “Stroke” colour from Black to White, and convert it to a raster layer.Now using your magic wand, click on the circle, go to Selections, Modify and Contract your selection by 12px, then delete and deselect. If you are satisfied with the placement of the ring, merge the two layers.Step 5 – Now we are going to add a shape that will hold a gem. I am going to use the teardrop shape from the shapes file that we downloaded from Jumbo PSP. With your foreground set to black and your background set to white, select “Preset Shape” from your vector tools and then scroll through the shape list on your tools palette until you find the “teardrop”. Draw out your teardrop and when you are satisfied with the size, rotate it 90 degrees to the left and centre it over the outer edge of your ring.Right click on “Teardrop” in the Vector layer and select “Properties” from the drop down list. Then change the “Stroke” colour from Black to White, and convert it to a raster layer. Using your magic wand, click on your teardrop shape, go to Selections, Modify and Contract your selection by 12px, delete and deselect. Then merge down.OK that is your basic pin shape. If this pin is something that you intend using over and over, but just changing the colours of the gem or beads, then save a copy of your pin for future reference.Step 6 – Using your magic wand, click on you pin to select it and go to Effects, Plugins, Flaming Pear, SuperBladePro and select vjf_silver.q5q and apply and deselect.Viola, one beautiful siver pin.Step 7 – Adding a gem to your pin. I don't believe in making work for myself, especially when Celia Martin has the most exquisite gems on her site. I cannot reproduce gems to this quality so I always use Celia's gems in my work. Add a new raster layer and select one of the teardrop shaped gems from your tubes. I have chosen the roughly faceted light blue sapphire and because I have set my scale to 115 because I know from trial and error that the sapphire was not quite big enough. Place your tube on your new layer, rotate the sapphire 90 degrees to the left. Move it over your silver pin so that the gem is above the teardrop shape at the end and pull the layer below your pin. This gives you a cabuchon effect. Merge the two layers.Save your work because the next bit is a bit fiddly and I would hate for you to lose your work if PSP crashes.Step 8 – The chains that I made for this pin are very stylised. We first need to make a little guide to build the chain around. Click on your pen tool and with your foreground set to black and your background to transparent, select the “Draw point to point – Bezier Curves” mode from your tools palette. Place your first node just under the open circle at the end of your pin and pull out the directional arrows – see screenshot below.Now come further down your screen and place your next node and pull the directional arrow out. While doing this turn the arrow until the line is the shape that you require.Now come further down your screen and place your final node, pulling and turning the directional arrow until you are satisfied with your shape. Click on your Object Selection tool and then on your image to deselect the line that you have just drawn.Repeat the process again to create a second guide line and then convert your layer to a raster layer. Rename it “Guides”. This layer will be deleted when we have finished.Step 9 – The chains are made using this symbol “~”. I don't know what it is called, but the symbol appear on the key below your Return key on your keyboard. It is on the same key as the hash symbol “#”. Select your Text tool on your left hand toolbar, and on your tools palette select “Times New Roman” and 72 pts. Set your foreground and background to black. Now type “~” this symbol, Ctrl+C to copy it and then Ctrl+G to paste a copy of the symbol on your layer. Now switch to the “Object Selection Tool” and we are going to start to build a chain.With your tool, click on the first symbol and move it up to the end of your guideline, just below the circle on your pin. Rotate it until each of the curves, lines up either side of the guideline. Click on the second symbol that you copied to your layer and move it up below the first. Rotate it so that the curves line up either side of the guideline and it lies just below the first symbol. Because the copy of that you made of the symbol is still in you PSP memory, you can just paste another symbol onto your layer by pressing Ctrl+G. Keep lining them up in this way until you reach the bottom of the guideline. When you have completed the first string, convert your vector layer to a raster layer and rename it “Chain 1”.Step 10 – Change your foreground and background to blue and type another symbol just like the one before. Go to Image and Flip and then Ctrl+C to copy it and then Ctrl+G to paste a copy of the symbol on your layer. Now switch to the “Object Selection Tool” and move the new blue symbol up just under the circle on your pin, just like the screenshot below.Continue pasting, rotating and placing the links for the second side of the chain until you reach the bottom of the guideline. Then convert your vector layer to a raster layer and name it Chain 2.Step 11 - Now we will weave the two chains together. Select your “Freehand Selections tool” and set it to “Point to Point” on your tools palette. Make a rough selection over the area where the middle of the blue and black chains cross over. Then holding your Shift key down continue doing the same thing until you have the middle sections of all the chain crossing points selected.Now click on Chain 1 in your layers palette to make it the active layer and Ctrl+F to float your selections.Now click on Chain 2 in your layers palette to make it the active layer and delete and deselect.Now you will see that your chains are interlinked. At this point we will change the colours of the links back to white. So click on Chain 1 and then click Adjust, Colour Balance, Manual Colour Correction and click on the Source. Change the colour to Black, then click on Target and change the colour to White, and click OK. Do the same for Chain 2, but when you click on Source, change the colour to Blue.Both chains should now be white.Step 12 – Repeat this process from Step 9 to 11, for the second guideline, so that you once again create two sections of chain that you subsequently interlink. Name your new chain sections, Chain 3 and Chain 4. Change the colour back to whiteStep 13 – Now that you have created both chains you can delete your “Guidelines” layer as you no longer need it. Click on Chain 1 to make it active and Ctrl+A, Ctrl+F and Effects, Plugins, Flaming Pear, SuperbladePro and apply my silver setting, then deselect. Click on Chain 2, Ctrl+A, Ctrl+F, Effects, Plugins, SuperbladePro and apply my silver setting, then deselect. Merge these two layers.Repeat the application of the silver SuperbladePro setting with Chain 3 and Chain 4 and merge these two layers.Step 14 – Now move Chain 1 up so that the topmost link is lying over the circle at the end of the pin. Using your Freehand selections tool set to Point to point, select the section of ring that lies under the right hand side of your link. Then click on your “Pin” layer and Ctrl+F so that the section of the circle that you selected is floated and click on Chain 1 again and delete and deselect. Now your chain appears to be joined to the circle on the pin. Move the other chain up so that the topmost link is lying over the circle at the end of the pin. Using your Freehand selections tool set to Point to point, select the section of ring that lies under the left hand side of your link. Then click on your “Pin” layer and Ctrl+F so that the section of the circle that you selected is floated and click on the chain layer again and delete and deselect.Beautiful.Step 15 – Now for the easy part. In the zip file were two PNG files. Open the Oval bead, copy it and paste it as a new layer into your image. Rotate it 90 degrees to the left and flip your bead, then position it over the pin, close to the circle.Open the Round Bead, copy it and paste it into your image as a new layer and position it over one of the chains. You will need to do this 6 times as there are six beads to position and you may need to adjust the placement of the bead by rotating it slightly. You will notice that I did not include the bead channel in these beads. That is purely to make them a look more natural rather than seeing a hard line in the middle of the curves of the chains.Step 16 – Almost done. You are to make a little post and ball for the bottom two beads. Click on your pen on the left hand toolbar and set the mode to “Draw lines and polylines” on your tools palette. Change your foreground colour to white and your background colour to transparent. Set your line style to “solid” and the line width to “8” and draw a line from the end of the left hand chain through the width of the bead. Now select the “Object selections tool” and click on your layer to deselect the line. Do the same for the end of the other chain.Now change your foreground and your background colours to white and select your Elipse tool from your left hand toolbar. Then select the Circle tool from your tools palette and draw a small circle at the bottom of the first line. Ctrl+C and Ctrl+G and move the second circle to the bottom of the second line. Convert your layer to a raster layer and rename it “Posts”.Now Ctrl+A and Ctrl+F to select and float your posts and Effects, Plugins, SuperbladePro and apply my silver setting. Deselect and move the layer to the bottom.Merge visible and you are done.
