Saturday Sessions: How to Make Glitter Letters

What you will need this week: 

I try to do tutorials that don't require Photoshop since it is so expensive, but there is no getting around this one (that I know of). Tip: before I owned photoshop, I used to go to the public library and use their iMacs that had Adobe Create Suite installed, it was totally free to use!

Find some glitter that you like on the internet. For the purpose of this tutorial I want to show you that you can use glitter from ANYTHING. For example, we are going to make Glitter Letters (shown above) out of THIS picture:

image via

OR if you are totally dead set on using gold glitter like I often use...

try using one of these images:

 here // here // here // here

Save the image to your desktop then open the image in photoshop and select the Rectangular Marquee Tool 

Use the marquee tool to select the area of sparkle that you want to use. Since this is an image of shoes (not a background) the sparkles are concentrated to one place. I just selected that square area of glitter.

--Or--

If using one of the gold glitter backgrounds listed above, select a square portion of the image.

After highlighting you area of glitter you want to use go to Edit ---> Define Pattern --> Then hit OK when prompted to save the new pattern.

Open a new document and use the text box tool to write a word to test your new pattern out. Then double click on that layer to edit layer style, then select "pattern"

Select the drop down arrow in the "pattern" box then find the pattern you just made. It will be the very last one listed. Click that pattern.

You may need to use the "scale" feature. Move the scale percentage to the left to make the sparkle more concentrated, move it to the right to make it less focused. Mine was at the perfect scale to begin with so I didn't need to use the scale feature this time.

Voila! Glitter letters! 

As always, if you have ANY ANY ANY questions at all. Doesn't hesitate to ask! 

Have a great weekend, y'all!