This tutorial is of my own creation and any resemblance to any other tuts is purely coincidental. This tutorial is for personal use only, using it for monetary gain is against our TOU's. Supplies Needed:

~Gimp (any version will do).

~Tasha's Playground portion of the FTU Christmas Time O'Scrap blog train, which you can get HERE.

~Tube of choice. I used the artwork of Shawli, you must have a license to use this art. You can purchase this art from PTE HERE.

~Template of choice. I used Leah's template 118 which you can get on our blog HERE.

~Font of choice. I used Mural Script.

Let's get started!!!

1. Open a new layer ( I prefer a large canvas, so I make mine 1050x656). Make your canvas transparent (Layer > Transparency > Color to Alpha).

2. Open template in PSD format, remove and move layers of template around until they are the way you like them.

~Add paper from scrapkit to individual layers of the template (Right click on template layer in layer box > Alpha to Selection > CTRL I > Select paper layer in layer box > Delete).

These are the papers I used:

Paper 2 Paper 5 Paper 8

~I added noise to some of the template layers to make them look glittery (Filters > Noise > RGB Noise).

~I colorized some of the template layers to better match the scrapkit (Colors > Colorize > play with the setting until you get the desired color).

~Add drop shadow to template layers (Filters > Light & Shadow > Drop Shadow).

3. Open tubes, I used both a full body and a close up.

~Open full body tube, add drop shadow.

~I changed the mode on the close-up to Grain Merge (at the top of your Layer Box you will see where it says Mode, click the arrow and select Grain Merge from the drop down menu). This tube has been added to the template in the same way you add paper (Right click on template layer in layer box > Alpha to Selection > CTRL I > Select tube layer in layer box > Delete).

4. Open and place the following elements:

Stars

Ribbon

Button

Button 2

Stocking

Bow

Ornament

Branch 2

Flower

Gel flower

~Some of the elements may need to be sized down. Using your scale tool in your tool box adjust the pixel size until element is the correct size~

~Add drop shadow to all elements~

5. Merge Layers (Image > Merge Visible Layers).

6. Crop Image (Image > Autocrop Image).

7. Scale image to desired size (Image > Scale Image).

8. Add copyright info and name.

9. Save as .png

ALL DONE!!!!!!!!!!