Advent Alpha 24

Ok, here are some sparkly gems to celebrate the end of this year's advent calendar. 

Advent Alpha 24

An old alpha for the Advent Calendar

I think that 4shared has been deleting my files because I'll go to my account and look for a tagger-sized alpha that I made and it won't be there.  Anyways, I liked the suggestion for a snowman alpha, but I don't have time to make one.  So, I'm going to offer up this tagger-sized alpha that I made three years ago.  It is small.  The images are only 0.5 inches in size, but it is 300 dpi, so it is possible to print them.  It uses a tube that I got through a sharing group.

Get the tagger-sized alpha: Snowmen.  And if you want it without the drop shadow, I also have it in gif format.  Yes, it is really old!

Advent Alpha 22

Sorry the day is half over before I could post today's alpha.  I'm really busy with holiday preparations.  I didn't really like this bow alpha, but I don't have time to make something better.  Since I was criticized for making different colors, this one just comes in silver.  You will have to recolor the ugly letters yourself.  The zip is available via Skydrive because 4shared is currently down for maintenance.

Advent Alpha 22

Advent Alpha 21

Taking a suggestion, I tried my hand at making an ice alpha.

Advent Alpha 21

Advent Alpha 20

Here is the last minty Mickey Head alpha.  It is sort of cute.  It is also sort of big because of all the glitter.  I don't think I'll be making a green version.

Advent Alpha 20

Starburst Pattern Paper

This tutorial will show you how to make a paper with a starburst pattern in Paint Shop Pro.

1.  Open up a new canvas.  Mine is 3600 x 3600 at 300 dpi for a full size paper.

2.  Fill the canvas with a color using the Fill Bucket.

3.  Create a new layer (Layers > New Raster Layer).

4.  Use the custom selection tool to create a 3600 x 200 selection in the center of on the new layer.

Left = 1600
Right = 1800
Top = 0
Bottom = 3600

5.  Fill the selection with a contrasting color.

6.  Ctrl + D to select none.

7.  Use the Pattern effect (Effects > Reflection Effects > Pattern) to create vertical stripes.  Create as many stripes as desired.  I chose 9 stripes.

Horizontal offset = 0
Vertical offset = 0
Rotation angle = 0
Scale factor = 1
Number of columns = 9
Number of rows = 3
Horizontal shift = 0
Vertical shift = 0

8.  Finish by using the Polar Coordinates deformation (Effects > Distortion Effects > Polar Coordinates) to create the starburst.

Rectangle to polar = Checked
Edge mode = Wrap

Advent Alpha 19

Here are some more minty Mickey heads because I tried a few different variations.

Advent Alpha 19

Advent Alpha 18

These Mickey letters looked really cute individually.  I'm not sure they look good en masse.

Advent Alpha 18

Advent Alpha 17

Here is a second neon alpha because I happened to like the color.

Advent Alpha 17

Advent Alpha 16

As you can see, I'm running out of good ideas.  This always happens during my attempt to make 24 alphas.  The ones in the middle are never very good.  Please feel free to make some suggestions.

Advent Alpha 16

Advent Alpha 15

Here are some poinsettias for Day 15. 

Advent Alpha 15

Famous Basketball Player - Kobe Bryant

Famous Basketball Player - Kobe Bryant

Famous Basketball Player - Kobe Bryant

Famous Basketball Player - Vince Carter

Famous Basketball Player - Michael Jordan

Famous Basketball Player - Michael Jordan

Famous Basketball Player - Michael Jordan

Famous Basketball Player - Michael Jordan

Famous Basketball Player - Allen Iverson

Famous Basketball Player - Allen Iverson

Famous Basketball Player - Allen Iverson

Famous Basketball Player - Greg Oden

Famous Basketball Player - Greg Oden

Advent Alpha 14

Here is the lower case for yesterday's alpha.

Advent Alpha 14

Advent Alpha 13

This is another alpha that I played around with last year, but didn't end up sharing it.  You can get the lower case for this alpha tomorrow.

Advent Alpha 13

Advent Alpha 12

Here is something a little different, but still festive.  I was thinking people might be able to use it for New Year's celebrations.

Advent Alpha 12

Advent Alpha 11

I don't know if anyone has noticed, given how few visitors I have, but direct links have been enabled for today's download.  I don't know if I'm going to convert my older links to direct download as it seems like a lot of work.

Advent Alpha 11

Advent Alpha 10

A nice person wrote in and asked for the plain gold letters from my wire bead alphas.  As the wire bead alphas are from when I started posting scrap alphas, they are a bit smaller than my current alphas at only 1 inch tall for the capital letters.  I hope that other people, besides the requestor, will be able to use them.

Advent Alpha 10

Advent Alpha 9

Here is the third day of bead alphas.  I hope I can come up with some idea for tomorrow.  I didn't really like the colors for the beads once I made the previews, but I'm too tired to go back and re-do them.

Advent Alpha 9

Advent Alpha 8

This is the second of three days of bead alphas because I'm super busy with work.  As a result, I'm exhausted and not feeling very creative.

Advent Alpha 8

Advent Alpha 7

The download links are available available as text.  I do not link my images because then people just grab and go.  I get very few comments, so I think it is fair to ask for a little bit of reading.  Or, perhaps people just think all of my alphas are hideously ugly and that's why I see mostly complaints in the comments.

Advent Alpha 7

Advent Alpha 6

Advent Alpha 6

Advent Alpha 5

I came up with the concept for this alpha two years ago, when I started giving away alphas during advent.  However, I didn't like the previous versions that I made.  I think this version is slightly better than previous versions.

Advent Alpha 5

Advent Alpha 4

Here is the lowercase for yesterday's alpha.

Advent Alpha 4

Advent Alpha 3

Uppercase is available today. Lowercase will be available tomorrow.

Advent Alpha 3

Advent Alpha 2

Advent Alpha 2