I’m sure you can guess that I’m not really going to talk about masquerade masks and fairy wands. But I am going to talk about some of the same tools I used in last week’s post about creating patterned vellum. Specifically, the Magic Wand tool and Layer Masks.

Today I want to show you how to create your own fun edge overlay using some patterned papers you likely already have on hand.

Grungy Overlay

I don’t know about you but I love messy/grungy edges or page borders. Not on all my layouts but I do use them very frequently. This technique is a great way to create custom edges.

Some of the steps I’ll use to create a custom grungy overlay are very similar to those I used last week when creating patterned vellum. So, if you read that post most of today’s tips will seem very familiar.

Just as with creating patterned vellum, today’s technique tends to work the best with papers that have small (in most cases), clearly defined repeating patterns having a sharp contrast with the background and no underlying texture like canvas or woven fabric.

Here are a few examples of the types of paper that can work well with this technique:

You may notice some of the papers above were also examples I used in last week’s post. And here’s a look at just the sunburst pattern turned into an overlay:

Before I move forward, just a quick reminder that I use Photoshop Elements (PSE) 2024. If you use a different version, some of my screen shots may not look the same as what you see on your screen.

I’m going to start with a blank 12×12 file and fill the base layer (Layer 1) with white:

Next, I’m going to pull in a really old piece of paper with a scattering of multi-sized stars:

Note: I’m sorry to say that this paper is from a free sampler pack that was available at Digital Press which is no longer in business. If you’re following along, you can use any pattern you like. The steps will be the same.

Now, you may be able to see that this paper has a slightly gradient versus a pure solid background. For this reason, I’m going to be more careful about how I remove that background.

If the pattern you choose to use has a truly solid background you could simply try to remove the background using either the Magic Eraser Tool or the Background Eraser Tool (available since PSE version 10) as I discussed in last week’s post. Remember to simplify the paper first. For purposes of creating the overlay, I generally re-color my pattern to black so keep that in mind as an option for your pattern. You can then just skip to the “Creating The Overlay” section below.

Conversely, if you’re using a very intricate, multi-colored pattern, you may want to use the “masking” technique I provided last week. If you need to do that, please refer back to details in the creating patterned vellum post. Again, I generally re-color my pattern to black so keep that in mind as an option for your pattern. Then you can return to this post and skip to the “Creating The Overlay” section below.

Moving on…

If you’ve read last week’s post you know what I need to do next. I need to simplify the layer. If not, here’s a quick refresher. Most anything that I pull into a file will be treated as a Smart Object and PSE won’t let me edit it without first simplifying it.

With the paper simplified, as a precaution I’m going to duplicate this paper layer and hide the original. The duplicate paper layer should be the active layer.

Since I want to be careful about how I remove the background, just as last week, I could use the masking technique and create a selection around just a part of the pattern. But I’m going to be doing things a bit differently this week. Mostly because the background is not solid and nor are the stars.

With this particular pattern I think it’s actually going to be easier to isolate the stars. So, I’m going to use the Magic Wand tool to do that.

The Magic Wand

I select the Magic Wand tool and use the following settings: Tolerance set to 32, Sample All Layers unchecked, Contiguous unchecked and Anti-Alias checked. And contrary to what I did last week, I’m going to click on one of the stars vs. the background:

You should be able to see the marching ants around my selection.

I could do one of two things here. You might be thinking that I could just invert the selection (Select->Inverse) and then press the Delete key. Once upon a time I too thought that. And that should work. But for whatever reason, sometimes when I invert the selection, PSE isn’t always cooperative. If/when that happens, I just go to the top tool bar and select Edit->Delete. PSE will then remove the entire background seamlessly.

The other option is to not invert the selection and just create a new layer from the selection (Ctrl+J). PSE then places the selected stars on their own layer. The end result is the same. But this option leaves the duplicate layer of the original paper intact.

Since I don’t need to keep the duplicate paper layer intact, I inverted the selection and deleted the background:

Note: You can choose whichever option works best for you. If you opt to create a new layer of just the stars, please hide the remaining intact duplicate paper or you will continue to see the background. This could cause some confusion going forward.

Whichever option I use, I now have my stars on their own layer and I can see the white layer beneath them.

As I mentioned earlier, for purposes of creating the overlay, I generally re-color my pattern to black. Now you might be thinking, “Okay, the sunburst overlay example isn’t black.”

That’s why I said “generally”. If I’m using a colorful pattern as the basis for my overlay sometimes, I leave it at the original colors. And it’s perfectly okay for you to do that. Most often, that’s not the case for me.

With these stars I am going to re-color them. Again, there are multiple ways to accomplish this. But first I want to ensure that my Foreground/Background color chips are set to the default of Black and White (Press D).

I could now simply use the Paint Bucket tool. But before I do that, in the Layers Panel I need to click on the “Lock transparent pixels” (the checkered square with a lock at the bottom right). I first talked about the importance of this in my “It’s All About The Mask” post back in October of 2023.

With those pixels locked, I can just click on one of the yellow stars and PSE will fill all the stars with my Foreground color (black):

Here’s an alternate option. In the Layers Panel I could click on the “Create a New Fill or Adjustment Layer” icon (the circle that’s half white and half black) and choose Solid Color and click OK to confirm. PSE then places a solid black layer above the stars layer. Then all I have to do is clip that black layer to the stars layer. And I get the exact same result.

Given that, you probably could guess that clipping a paper (perhaps a pretty rainbow paper) to the stars would also work:

And how pretty is that? But for ease of viewing during the next process, I’m going to stick with solid black.

But clearly you can see that there are lots of options to re-color your pattern! Now let’s go make an overlay…

Creating The Overlay

With my black stars layer active, I grab the Brush Tool. I’m going to be using a Stipple brush. These brushes are located in the PSE set of Natural Brushes.

To find those I just click on the down arrow to the left of the brush selection area:

PSE opens the brushes I have installed and I just scroll down until I see the set titled Natural Brushes:

Note: If you’re following along, be sure you don’t select the set titled Natural Brushes 2. That set doesn’t include the Stipple brushes.

PSE then opens the Natural Brushes and I select the Stipple 54 pixels brush:

In the tool settings I set the Size to 500 px, the Opacity to 70% and the Mode to Normal:

Then I click the Brush Settings box. PSE opens the setting dialog box and I set the Spacing to 50%:

Note: You can experiment with different brush settings to achieve varying results. You can even try using other types of brushes. You’re not restricted to just the Stipple brush!

Now, I ensure that the stars layer is still the active layer. Next, in the Layers Panel I press and hold the Alt key and click the Add Layer Mask icon. PSE than adds a Layer Mask to the stars layer that is filled with black rather than white:

And you can now see that the stars have all disappeared:

In order to brush the “grungy” stars back on, I need the Foreground color chip to now be white since the Layer Mask is black. PSE should have already made that happen. If not, I just press the letter X on the keyboard to switch the Foreground color chip to white. Remember when using a mask, white adds & black erases, regardless of the Layer Mask’s color!

Next, I need to ensure that the Layer Mask for the stars layer is active (double-click on the layer mask). Then I just need to click and drag my cursor over the white background to add some of the stars back in to create the grunge effect.

I’m just going to brush around the edge of the paper to create a grungy border. But you certainly don’t need to confine yourself to just the edges. It all depends on what kind of grungy look you desire.

Any place where I want the stars to be more pronounced, I just brush over the area more than once. If I end up with an area that may be too dark, I just switch the Foreground color chip back to black to remove some of the stars. And here’s my grungy star edge:

To create the overlay, all I have to do is hide the white background and save this as a PNG file. Then I can just apply that overlay atop any paper and get a pretty “starry” edge:

And watch what happens if I use a darker background and clip a glitter paper to that overlay:

I saved each of these versions as a new paper creation in my stash.

I’m also going to save my file as a PSD with a name that will makes sense to me later. Something like GrungyStarEdgeOverlay should work. By doing this I can make countless versions of paper and different versions (or colors) of star overlays in the future.

I bet you’re already coming up with some creative edge ideas!!

I’m going to show you just a few quick examples of other overlays that aren’t just edges using a few of the sample papers near the top of this post.

I used a lovely damask paper that is from “Petal Power” by Joyce Paul at The LilyPad, to create this overlay:

Then there’s this one that I made using a spider web paper that is from “Abracadabra” by The Nifty Pixel at Sweet Shoppe Designs:

And, this one that I made using a snowflake paper from the “Evergreen Mini No. 1” kit by Jessica Dunn at DigitalScrapbook.com:

Finally, one last idea for how you can customize your grungy layer to “anchor” a cluster strip on a layout:

To see the details about this layout you can find it in my 2025 Gallery.

I hope you found this post useful or at least interesting and will have fun making some grungy overlays of your own!

Additional Tips

First and foremost, the next time you use a brush after working with this technique, you need to be sure to check your brush “spacing” setting! As far as I’m aware, PSE does not reset those types of settings back to the default when you switch brushes!

Remember that this technique typically works best with small clearly defined patterns having a high contrast to the background.

Simple black & white patterned paper like these at Creative Fabrica are perfect for creating grungy overlays:

The great thing about this technique is that you can customize it for your current project. You don’t have to keep the “pattern” black. You can re-color it any way you like.

Don’t forget, you can also clip papers to these overlays giving you countless ways to change the look of the overlay.

Experiment with different brushes to see what other edge affects you can create. And don’t forget to vary the size and opacity of the brush.

Once you create your grungy overlay you can create countless different papers using it.

Above all just see where your creativity can take you! Never forget to exercise your imagination!

Thanks for reading this week’s Tuesday Tip. Remember, if you have any suggestions or questions please don’t hesitate to “Message Me“. Check back next week for a tip about Typing On Selections Click “Follow Me” to stay in touch. I hope you have a wonderful week!