In the following simple tutorial you will learn how to create a nice shamrock for St. Patrick's Day.

Following the steps of the tutorial you will develop the skills of working with Custom shapes, Layer styles, and Gradients in Photoshop CS5.

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Final Image

Step 1

Create new document and fill the new background layer with any green color you like (Paint Bucket Tool (G))

Then add a layer style (click on the Add layer style ) and choose Gradient Overlay

Our result:

Step 2

Then we need to add some inner glow. Create a new layer, set Fill to 0% for this layer. Click on the Add Layer Style icon again and choose Inner Glow with the settings like in the image below.

We've got a next result:

Step 3

Use the Floral brushes. You may download they here.

Create a new layer and select any brush you like. Change Foreground color for your flowers and use different value for brush's Opacity.

Step 4

Now make a copy of Layer "Flower". Then apply Filter - Blur - Gaussian blur on the copy. Set the Radius 4.3 of Gaussian blur.

Step 5

Great! Let's create a nice shamrock ! Choose the Custom Shape Tool (U) in the Tools bar. Find shamrock at the bottom of the menu, and then double-click a shape thumbnail to select it.

Click on it to draw a shamrock in the middle of your work. Select Stroke layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel and set Fill to 0% for this layer .

Here is our result:

Step 6

Now we need to fill outline of shamrock with the different ornamed shapes. So go to the Custom Shape Tool (U) again and choose any shapes you like. I used this:

Find the sets for this ornament shapes in the pictures below. Set Fill to 0% for this layer.

Now we can create our first shape :)

Step 7

Now we can fill the area of shamrock with variety shapes.

Step 8

Hide layer with the main shamrock shape. And combine all the layers od ornament shapes in a group.

Step 9

For the more realistic effect add some shamrocks shadow. For this click on the Add layer style button and choose Drop Shadow. Apply settings on the picture below:

Step 10

In conclusion I want to add one more effect. Create a new layer and fill it with the white color. Set Fill to 41% for this layer and change the Blending mode to Overlay

Here is our final result!

Have a nice day!