I am completely obsessed with butterflies! What’s not to like? They’re magical and etherial and gentle and soft and fragile and …. Need I go on? I love them so much that I’m pretty sure there is at least one butterfy in every kit I’ve ever released!
The biggest problem with butterfly elements — at least from my perspective — is that they are not easy to recolor. It takes lots of fiddling and knowledge of the inner workings of Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to get these beauties to be unique.
Playing around with some of my own mixed media backgrounds — which start their lives as lots of layers of paint and gesso and all sorts of stuff — I realized I could re-purpose them in a super fun way! And that’s how these Custom Layered Butterfly Templates were born!
Using my templates, though, it’s easy to create butterflies that coordinate with any kit in your stash!
In the first video, I’ll demonstrate how to load into the full version of Photoshop the pattern files included with the butterfly templates and show you how to use the templates themselves.
The second video shows how to load the patterns into Photoshop Elements but the first video, for Photoshop users includes a couple of ideas for further customizing the butterflies, so PSE users may want to watch both.
Make Your Own Patterns from Kit Papers
Although the Butterfly Templates come with 5 patterns, you can turn any paper in your stash into a pattern and then use them with the templates! You’ll be astonished at how many beautiful butterflies you can make!
To make a pattern in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements:
- Open a 12 x12 digital scrapbooking paper
- From the Edit menu choose Define Pattern
- Give the pattern a new name or leave the default name as it is and click Ok
To use the pattern you can add a Pattern Adjustment Fill Layer, the Pattern Stamp brush, or in the full version of Photoshop, add a Pattern style.
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