Shapes and Styles

While I was trying to find my new, downloaded styles were, I discovered the shapes menu. The shapes menu is just below the gradients on the tools menu, usually on the left side of the elements workspace.

There's a fly out menu that shows the different shape options. When you're finished playing with the boring circles and ellipses (hold shift to make a perfect square or circle) look at the bottom of the flyout menu and you will find custom shapes. There will probably be hundreds of them.
At the top of your page will be the current custom shape tool, the colour, and the style. These all have drop down menus. In the style menu you might just find your missing styles. If you click on the arrows at the right hand top of the page it will show a list of styles available to you. Here's an example of making something only using custom shapes.

Add a brush stamp.

puzzle custom shape with metallic fill and brush 

You can also download custom shapes
http://debh945.deviantart.com/gallery/11633451
or
http://browse.deviantart.com/?q=custom%20shapes&order=9&offset=24

Here's a custom bookplate shape made from the Scrappin Cop.

Here's an example of a shape that has been reworked.

Remember, onece you make the shape you can treat it like a regular layer. You can erase, use the brush, enhance colour, add light, multiply, etc.