Christmas Ball

1. Begin with a new file, size and color doesn't matter. Then create a new layer.

2. Take the Elliptical Marquee Tool and draw out a circle, hold down Shift to get the circle perfectly round, then set your foreground color to black and your background color to red.

3. Now take the Gradient Tool and draw from top to bottom.

Now should it look like this.

4. Create a new layer and take the Elliptical Marquee Tool and make a small circle, then set your foreground color to white, then take the Gradient Tool and choose the second gradient from left, draw from top to bottom, then go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and set the Radius to 2 pixels.

Now should it look like this.

5. Go back to layer1, then go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise and set the Amount to 2%, Distribution Gaussian and Monochromatic.

6. Create a new layer, now take the Rectangle Marquee Tool and draw out a small rectangle, then take the Gradient Tool and choose a gradient that goes from grey, white, grey, white, grey, then draw the gradient from left to right, then move the layer below layer1.

That's it you are done!.

This is what i came up with.

Below is another example with different colors and I have also added some Drop Shadow, to change the colors, click layer1 and go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and play around with the settings.