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Make a Digital Wax Seal
Tracy Beck - Digital Deck CrewmemberThings really do come back into style. I have seen some wonderful wax seal elements for scrapbook pages and for sealing envelopes. This technique is pretty easy to do in Photoshop if you know the steps.
I started off by opening a new document and set the size at 600 x 600 dpi with a transparent background. Select the Lasso tool by pressing the letter L. You will see a triangle with a squiggle on the bottom and a magnet on top. Use the tool to draw an uneven shape. When you connect the ends of the shape, the shape will turn into marching ants.
Select the color you want your seal to be. Then, select the paint bucket and fill the shape with your color.
Press Control J to make a duplicate blob layer. I made a circle using the circle tool on the tool bar. With the top layer selected, press the delete key to make the center of the circle vanish. Then, select Edit>Stroke, and the stroke box will appear. I chose a five pixel width.
Pick a brush that you want to stamp into the wax seal. Use the color black for your stamp and place the stamp on a new layer.
Turn off the visibility of the stamp layer and the background blob layer. Only your layer with the cut out should be visible. Now, we will add some style to the layer to make it look a bit more wax-like. Open the style dialog box labeled fx at the bottom of the layer pallet and select Bevel and Emboss. You can also double click on the photo of your layer in the layer pallet to open the dialog box. Set the Depth to 100%, Size to 24 px, Soften to 4 px, Angle to 129 degrees, Altitude to 55 degrees and uncheck global light. Do not click ok yet. 
Now, click on the Contour box. Click on the down arrow to select the style you want. I picked Cone Inverted but your shape may look better with a different selection. Select Range 100%.
Now, click on Satin. Select Blend Mode – Hard Light, Opacity 28%, Angle 110 degrees, Distance 36, & Size 106. Click the down arrow next to contour to select your satin finish. I selected Rolling Slope – descending.
Next, select Inner Glow. Set the Blend Mode to Multiply. Set the color of your glow to be the same color as your swatch. The only other change you need to make is to set the size to 40.
Now select your stamped image layer and turn the visibility back on. Open the Layer Style dialog and select Bevel and Emboss. Select the Style: Emboss, set depth to 400%, change the direction to Down, Size 10, Soften 1, Angle 120 degrees, unclick global light, Altitude 53.
Then, select the Blending Options at the top of the Styles list. In the Advanced Blending section, set your Fill Opacity to 0%. This will make your color invisible but keep the layer style.
I needed to make my bottom layer just a bit darker to match better with all the styles that were added to the top layer. Here is my finished wax seal.
For this layout, I re-colored my seal and changed my center to a snowflake. I used my digital kit, Flakey, from the Scrapping Garden. These photos of my children were taken over four years and I thought it would be nice to show them growing up in one layout.
Supply list for layout:
PhotoShop CS3
Digital Kit – Flakey by Tracy Beck from the Scrapping Garden
Font - Girls are Weird
I would love to see your wax seal creations in the Digital Gallery, and if you post a layout using your wax seal in the Digital Gallery, I will send you a Digital Gift.
Tracy Beck
tracybeck@ssreflections.com
Digital Deck Crewmember
Reflections Publishing Group, LLC
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***Disclaimers - While individual techniques may vary, always follow product manufacturers' directions and cautions for safety and best results.
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