Filling Text/Elements/Shapes with Papers (Clipping Masks & Pattern Fills)

[kimberkatt]

** this tutorial brought to you by Kimberkatt Scraps **

(previously used for the Mar10 Decorate Your Wordart challenge)

The trick I used this month was clipping a paper to the wordart. There are two ways you can use any paper to clip to your text/shapes/masks. (Remember, I use Photoshop Elements, so if you use a different program, you may have different steps to take)

First, you can use the "Group with Previous" function

1. Open up a new 12X12, 300ppi page
2. drag or place the wordart & your paper of choice into the new page
3. Make sure that your wordart layer in BELOW your paper layer (you should just see your paper on the screen because the wordart is hidden underneath for right now)
4. Make sure you are on your paper layer (just click on it in the layers menu)
5. Go to Layer>Group with Previous (or you can just hit Ctrl+G as a shortcut)
6. Now, you should see your paper "clip" to your wordart! It's as easy as that!

This is the same technique used to fill up your layered templates

The other way you can fill your wordart is by making the paper into a pattern fill:

1. Open up your paper in your program
2. Go to Select>All (or Ctrl+A for a shortcut) so you get the "marching ants" all around the edges of the paper
3. Go to Edit>Define Pattern from Selection
4. You can name your pattern whatever you want, or just keep the name that is there and click OK. This has now saved your paper as a pattern fill!
5. Open up your wordart
6. Click on your Fill tool (looks like a paint bucket)
7. On the top toolbar, you should see a drop down box next to the word Fill - make sure this is changed from "foreground" to "pattern"
8. Right next to that is the Pattern drop down box - select your new pattern from the list
9. Now, just go ahead and fill each letter with your new pattern! Pretty simple, eh? And, you now have your pattern saved to use whenever you want without having to open up the paper!

[DarlineHM]

this was great!!!! Thanks!!