Making Metal

I have a lot of hand drawn vintage clipart. I loaded some of it on my computer. There were a few pocket watches in there. I have scoured the internet trying to add a metallic finish to them without loosing detail and ending up with the shape of a pocket watch with a metallic gradient slapped on it. Here I'll show you.

La Pocket watch graphic

I have added gradients, embossed, mutiplied, plasticised without much luck. If anyone comes up with a good tutorial let me know. Here's my result.

La Pocket watch done to death.

It's severely lacking in detail and doesn't have a lovely gold finish on it.
When I was just about to close up I found a tutorial that included doing what I wanted. I want to go to sleep so I haven't tried it yet. Here's the link:
http://photoshopper27.blogspot.com/2011/03/frame-brush.html

I was so happy to find it I added his site to blogs I Follow. I'll move it to the links section another evening. It has this and many other photoshop tutorials you can check out.
And if you can find a tut for adding a big, shiny skin on my graphic, post it here.
Goodnight all.

Is Using labels Cheating?

It all started when I finally bought new ink for the printer. My all-in one (Epson Workforce 500) becomes totally useless if  even one colour is empty. I can't scan or fax or anything.  And all the colours run out at almost the same time whether I print anything or not, so it's very pricey to replace inks and I avoid it.

In the meantime I made some collage sheets for my Etsy store. I did a page of French antique labels. Usually I go through the sme process as the buyer to make certain everything is alright. When I FINALLY got my ink and printed out the labels I thought there might be a better way of laying them out. Not a quantum jump to think of printing them on actual label sheets.

This is where my journey takes a twist. Most of my labels are round. There is nowhere in Vancouver that seems to sell round labels. Have you ever looked in a section of a store knowing that what you want isn't there, but you stand there hoping it will magically appear? I was that person last week.

So, yes, I am sad to say I settled. I bought a package of rectangular labels in hopes of washing away the horror and the shame of having failed. I made a pathetic stab at creating some French Travel tags (they are for sale in my Etsy shop). Like they say you can't put a square peg in a round hole.

However, they (2" x 4") fit nicely on Manila shipping tags and make lovely bookplates. I am inspired to make a wide variety of things with these large mailing labels. I downloaded the Avery software, DesignPro for Mac and it works really well. The program makes it really easy to line things up and I can print it out on regular paper. There are no telltale lines or boxes that print out. It looks like I'm an exceptionally neat and tidy person.  Ha!
And they have circles!!!!!

© NeonSun Studios. All rights reserved J. Currie 2011  TEXTURE:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/jinterwas/5084624324/in/set-72157623759336739/