Setting Up Our Work Area
Lets create a new document 600 x 600 pixels, if you prefer you can make it bigger.
Fill your background with any color, ive opted for a simple grey color.
The Glue Stick
Select the eliptical marquee tool or the circle tool, which ever one you prefer, make a simple oval elipse on the left hand side of the canvas. Fill the elipse with any color for now.
Once you've filled with a color add these layer styles.
You should have something like this.
Create a new layer under the shape you just created. select the rectangle tool and make a selection like the image below.
Fill the selection with any color.
Duplicate your elipse layer, then right-click the duplicated layer and go to "clear layer styles". Add a color overlay, use the same color as you did for the square. Move the elipse across to the end of the square.
Merge the square layer and the duplicated eclipse layer into one layer, you may need to hide all your other layers and go to "layer - merge visable" sometimes when just pressing ctrl + e the layer styles remain, which we dont want. Once you've merged the layers you should be left with one layer, make sure its underneath your first eclipse layer then add these layer styles.
You should have something like this.
Duplicate the lid body, then drag the duplicated layer underneath its orginal. Move the duplicated item across a couple of pixels to the right.
Once again duplicate the lid body and drag the layer underneath its orginal, right-click the layer and go to "clear layer styles". Add a black color overlay then move the object to the right.
Using the rectangular marquee tool make a selection along the left side edge. Press "ctrl + t" to free transform the object, drag the left middle anchor point all the way over to the left so it meets the glue stick lid.
The result...
More Duplicating...
Duplicate your lid body again then drag it underneath the glue stick body. Move the duplicated object to the end of the body so theres a little bit of it sticking out.
This time duplicate the glue stick body (the black object) Move the layer to the bottom of the stack then move that over a couple of pixels.
Finally duplicate the glue stick lid, drag it to the bottom of the stack then move it over quite alot so it sticks out alot.
Adding The Bottom Ridges
Using the rectangular marquee tool create two 1 pixel lines on top of each other from one end of the glue stick bottom to the other. Fill the first line with the color #DDDDDD and the other with #FFFFFF. Similar to the indented lines we make on some of hv-designs web layouts. Duplicate the line and as many times as needed moving each line down a couple of times. Merge all your lines together as one layer then add a layer mask. Using a reflected gradient start from the middle of the lines and drag outwards either left or right.
The result...
Glue Stick Highlight
Make a selection across the middle of the glue stick body.
Fill the selection with the color white and set the layer's opacity to 20%. Now go to "filter - blur - guassian blur".
All done you should now have something like this.
Adding Additional Elements
By adding a few simple elements you can bring your glue stick to life abit more.
How about different colors?
