Christmas-Themed Template Customization Using Clipart (Exclusive Tutorial)

With Christmas on the threshold, I will continue demonstrating different ways to decorate your site and customize it in the spirit of the holiday. In the last tutorial we explored using clipart as the source of decorative elements. Here I will teach you to draw them yourself.

Start by opening templatemonster.com and taking a look at this travel agency template. Sites of this sort are especially relevant in the holiday season.

So, what can be done to customize it? First, we could add some snow falling on t he header and little snow piles to show it's been falling for a while. The site's logo is a ball-shaped, and can be used as a head for the Santa's cap as one more element of customization! The hot sandy beaches and palms will need a more Christmas-like substitution. And lastly, the header's background color is yellow-beige and has nothing to do with the winter theme; therefore some white and blue would be nice to add to it.

But let's make the changes one step at a time.

First, create a new layer and place it right above the yellow one - under all the other layers. Select the soft round 100px Air Brush and draw a white background to the header


I selected this layer to show the approximate area. In case you do not have the original.psd file, you can select a part of the yellow area with the Wand Tool (or with Select > Color Range), and add the white only within the selected space.

Now you should add some light blue to the white. Duplicate the layer with white and move it about 10 px down. Then add Color Overlay to it:




Now the snowflakes. Create a new layer on top of all the others. Zoom a part of the header as much as possible and choose the Pencil tool one pixel thick. It can be used to draw the first easy white snow flake. Use you imagination to create your own fanciful snowflake. I'm giving you my own one here:



All by itself, it looks too plain. Simple shadowing will give it some volume. Select Drop Shadow in Blending Options and apply the following settings:



That's how it looks now:



Duplicate the snowflake layer a few times and scatter the layers across the header.


Now the snow pile.

Create a new layer. Select the white soft medium-sized brush and use it to draw a curved white line above one of the menu items:



Doesn't really look natural, does it? To add some volume and enhance the realistic look go to Blending Options again and add Gradient Overlay and Stroke with the following settings:





Here's the approximate outcome:



Now you need to repeat the operations for the other menu items. Don't forget that you can copy Layer Style and then insert it for the other layer.


Now the Santa cap for the logo. Almost started drawing it, but found a very good one at the last moment:



Drag the cap onto the template and place it on top and a bit to the left of the logo:



A little shadowing and it seems the logo was created with the cap.





And at last it's time to change the photos used in the template. I wanted to find one that would depict both Christmas and a tropical vacation and my search paid off: I found a Santa-capped girl on a beach!



The photo can be added to the Caribbean category. Clip the photo (you may change the size using Free Transform) to fit 313*184. After that drag the layer containing the photo onto the template and place it on top of the old image.



Select the layers with the text and bring them to the front (Ctrl+Shift+] ). If you do not have the.psd, you should simply create new text.



For more Christmas Tutorials please visit this page.