Welcome to my Home away from Home.

Before I get started I would like to thank my daughter for designing my blog background. I love, love, love, did I say love it.  I couldn't have done it without her.  I think she is the best daughter a mom can have and I love her very much.

Now to the business at hand......

This is my first ever tut.  Hope you all enjoy it.  Any similarities to other tutorials are purely coincidental.

Open a new raster layer 650x250

open your tube of choice

I used the gorgeous work of Elizabeth Austin .  She is a PTU artist you can get her work along with a license if you don't have one Here

The font i used is AK Applique white it is ftu you can get it here

Copy  your tube and paste it as a new raster layer

Resize if needed and place on left side of Banner

Rename layer to Tube layer 1

Duplicate the tube once you have it placed. 

 Rename second layer to tube layer2

High light tube layer 1

Use Effects: Andrews filters  19 beads and all with these settings--

x1__________ 9

y1__________ 0

x2__________ 0

y2__________35

mix1_________30

mix2_________34

3d effects drop shadow with these settings---

1

-1

opacity ____100

blur_______5.0

color     black

Highlight tube layer 2

use effects:  unplugged x v.2 by VanDerLee Distortion

with these settings---

 Deviation 10

Repeat edges

transparency 0

normal

3d effects drop shadow with these settings---

1

-1

opacity ____100

blur_______5.0

color     black

Open new raster layer

Rename to background 1

Flood fill with a light color from your tube

resize 70%

selections

select all

float

defloat

You should see what looks like marching ants around the color of your background 1.  leave those for now as we are now going to add an effect called Mura's meister cloud with these settings---

effect _____100

amount_____90

grain_______ 0

contrast____ 0

bias _______ -80

light_______255

cubic________15

blur________ 0

contour_____ 0

Normal

ghost

all boxes checked

use the light and dark colors from your tag along with white

selections none

now your marching ants will be gone

edge effects --enhance

open new raster layer

rename layer to background 2

flood fill with a dark color to match your tube

resize background 2 -- 72%

adjust

add noise with these settings---

Gaussian checked       50%

monochrome checked

edge effects --enhance

then add

3d effects drop shadow with these settings---

1

-1

opacity ____100

blur_______5.0

color     black

open a new raster layer

rename stars

with your star preset shape

make a row  top to bottom with 4 stars -using both the dark and light  colors

position star layer to the right side of the background layers

duplicate the star layer

resize by 102%

adjust

add noise with these settings---

Gaussian checked       50%

  monochrome checked

3d effects drop shadow with these settings---

1

-1

opacity ____100

blur_______5.0

color     black

now for the text(ak applique white)

type out the words like this:

remember

our

---in the light color from your tube

adjust

add noise with these settings---

Gaussian checked       50%

  monochrome checked

flood fill with the dark color from your tube-----

fallen

soldiers

--in the dark color from your tube

adjust

add noise with these settings---

Gaussian checked       50%

  monochrome checked

flood fill with the lighter color from your tube---

you will now have 2 new layers

rename these layers

remember our 

fallen soldiers 

merge these 2 layers together by highlighting the remember our layer and merge down

then add a

3d effects drop shadow with these settings---

1

-1

opacity ____100

blur_______5.0

color     black

use your pick butten to adjust your text layer to position the text next to the tube layer 1 and background 1

Now the last but not least and the most important part.

make sure you have all copyright info of the tube you used.  Now if it is a PTU tube don't forget your license number. last thing is to add that you were the one that made the tag for an example--- tagged by Pat'11.

Merge all layers visible

 save as a png file

now for the avatar

undo the merge

and merge all layers except the copyright info

make sure your ratio is locked and resize it to 250 (with the ratio locked it will automatically resize the x ___ part)

then add all the copyright info and your licence and your tagged by where it is visible.

then merge those layers visible

also save as a png file.

Hope you find this easy to understand. 
I would love to see your results.  You can send your results or questions you may have to my email:
purplegrannie17@yahoo.com .

 As I said at the beginning this was my first one and I plan to add more as I have the time.