Dash of Inspiration – Christmas in July, Part 3

A Dash of Inspiration, A Cup of Creativity by Doreen

Christmas in July, Part III

Continuing this Christmas in July Series – in Part 3 I’ll give you some fun links to Shape files and Holiday Dingbats.  Using shapes (in Photoshop they are Shape Files .CHS) can be very handy when you need that extra design element.

The beauty of Shape files is that you can make them any size you wish, so you don’t need to worry about the resolution of the shape itself.  When you create the shape to fit your image file, it will automatically conform to the resolution you are working in.  Shapes are wonderful for silhouette effects, but you can just as easily add color and depth to them by simply creating the shape the size you want it, then Rasterize the layer and it acts like any other image so you can add color or styles making it unique to you and your design.

Another fun element we’ve chatted about before is Dingbat Fonts.  I’ve already told you how to create elements with Dingbats back in January of 2011 so visit the Who are You Calling a Dingbat Dash of Creativity if you are new to the world of dingbats.

I would encourage you when working with Shapes and turning Dingbats into elements that you do your creating in a separate 300dpi transparent 10×10-inch file.  This allows you, when you’ve created something wonderful, to save the element by itself with the layers in tact and access that element whenever you wish to use again.  This allows you to always have a fresh, large copy of your new element the next time you may need it.

Here we go with our resources for Week 3:

Set of 76 Christmas Silhouette Shapes by All-Silhouettes.com

Xmas Shapes by Camxso at deviantART.com

For the following you will need to create an Adobe login to download, but it’s free and I’ve been a member for years after registering Adobe software and I’ve found it to be a safe environment.

Christmas Shapes Set 1 by Michelle Hornecker at Adobe.com

Christmas Shapes Set 2 by Michelle Hornecker at Adobe.com  

Christmas Shapes Set 3 by Michelle Hornecker at Adobe.com

Christmas – Debbie (a Freeware DINGBAT Font)

Christmas Cheer (a Freeware DINGBAT Font)

Christmas Wreaths (a Freeware DINGBAT Font)

ChristmasTime (a Freeware DINGBAT Font)

For those new to the GCU Community you can catch up with our Dash of Inspiration posts here at the  Salon of Art: Dash of Inspiration.

Remember to keep tuning in Mondays in July, the Dash of Inspiration will be offering inspiration and design freebies to help you get those new 2012 Holiday Cards on the market!  ENJOY!

An example of using individual shapes, modifying them and combining them to create the element you want. In this case the bike was a shape, the girl was a shape but she had short hair so when I Rasterized the layer and combined the bike and the girl together, I was able to give her long flowing hair for a sexier look.