My selection files. Place these in your PSP selections folder or any location of your choice. You may download my selections here A pot or vase for the flower. I am not providing one with the tutorial. Eye Candy (optional). This is a commercial filter; however, you can download (for free) an earlier version of this program (Eye Candy 3), from here.
You'll be making all the pieces separately and then at the end will assemble them into your flower pot. The items you will be making are:
1) The leaf You'll open a new image and make all of the pieces on layers for easy assembly. Remember to save often and to save a master file with all layers intact. Also, naming your layers is helpful in keeping things organized. Ok, ready? We'll start with the leaf.
Step 1. Open a new layer 250 x 350, background color of your choice. Step 2. Add a new layer. Load selection 1 (leaf). Flood fill with green #507948. Keep selected.
Step 3. Add a new layer. You're going to do some shading to give it a (hopefully) close to realistic look. Set your foreground color to a darker green #3D513B and your background color to a lighter green #D8E2D0. (By setting the foreground and background colors now, you can just switch back and forth as you need to spray color on). Choose your airbrush with the following settings and spray on some color in a pattern similar to mine.
Step 5. Keep selected and add a new layer. Choose your draw tool, freehand line, size 4. Use the same colors you used before (foreground color to #3D513B, background color to #D8E2D0). Draw some lines on your leaf. Hint: Draw at a bit of a curve so both of your colors will show - straight lines will only show your foreground color, and you want a bit of both colors to show. When done, it should look similar to mine.
Step 6. With your smudge brush (same settings as before - adjust your brush size up/down as needed), smudge the lines out a bit, similar to this.
 Step 7. Your leaf is now done. Hide your background layer and merge all visible layers (name it "leaf.") Turn this layer off and turn your background layer back on.
Step 8. Add a new layer. Load selection 2 (flower petal). Flood fill with red #F11736.
 Step 9. Keep the petal selected and add a new layer. Set your foreground color to a lighter color - I chose #FADEE4. Choose your airbrush, same settings as before (adjust brush size down if you need to), and spray some color similar to mine.
 Step 10. With your smudge brush (same settings as before), smudge the color around until you have something similar to this:  Step 11. Hide all layers except the petal and shading. Merge visible layers and name it "petal." You'll need 4 more petals to make a flower, so copy>paste as a new layer 4 times. Arrange the petals into a flower shape, similar to this.
 Step 12. Add a new layer. Set your foreground and background colors to #FEC5CC. Choose your preset shape tool, ellipse shape, and draw a small circle in the center of your flower.
 Step 13.Apply Eye Candy jiggle (optional), using the following settings: (Note: if you don't have Eye Candy, you can use your airbrush and spray on some color in the center of your flower).
Step 14. Hide the background layer and merge all the flower layers together. Name it "flower." Step 15. Now you're going to assemble a cluster of flowers. Before you do so, it would be a good idea to save all of your individual pieces in psp format for safekeeping (you should have a leaf, a flower petal, and a flower). Activate your flower layer. Resize it down to about 30-40%. You'll be copying and pasting this several times and organizing it into a cluster of flowers. Go to copy>paste as new layer. When done, I had 9 layers of flowers in my cluster. Arrange them as it pleases you. Here's how mine looked when they were all arranged.
 Step 16. I changed the shape of some of these, but this is optional - skip it if you like yours the way they are. The ones I deformed are indicated by the black arrows in the following screen shot.
 Step 17. I applied individual drop shadows to each of the flowers in the cluster. Go to effects>3d effects>drop shadow, and use these settings: vertical 2, horizontal 2, opacity 27, blur 2, color black.
 Step 18. When the flowers are arranged to your liking, hide the background layer and merge all visible layers. Name this layer "flower cluster."
Step 19. Hide all layers except the background. Add a new layer. Step 20. Set your foreground and background colors to #6F8E69. Choose your preset shapes tool, set to ellipse. Draw a small oval - mine is about 10 x 20 (watch the numbers in the lower left of your screen).  Step 21. Choose your selection tool (any shape) and draw all around the little oval, then click inside it to select (you'll see marching ants around it). Add a new layer. Set your foreground and background colors to the same greens you used for the leaf above. Choose your airbrush, same settings as before except change the size to about 10. Spray the darker color at one end and the lighter color around the edges, similar to mine.
 Step 22.Smudge the colors, using the same settings as before. When done, hide the background layer and merge all visible layers.
Step 23. Now you'll just copy and paste this as a new layer as many times as you want. I have 5 little buds in my assembled one. Here's the finished product. When done, hide the background and merge visible layers. Label it "bud cluster."
Now all you need to do is put all the pieces together. You'll need a pot or vase to put your flowers in. I've assembled all the pieces and then drew the stems, but you could do it the other way around if you like. Step 24. Open up whatever container you've chosen for the flower and paste it as a new layer. Put this layer on top of your background layer. Everything else will go on top of this. Step 25. Move your leaf layer on top of this. Just copy the leaf and paste it as a new layer as many times as you want I put each leaf on its own layer, makes it easier to arrange. You'll need to resize the leaf down, and then you can rotate them and place into an arrangment that you like. Step 26. Move the flower cluster layer on top of this. Copy and paste as new layer as many times as you wish. I have 3 flower clusters, each on its own separate layer. Step 27. Move the bud cluster layer on top. Copy/paste new layers as you wish. I have 3 layers of these. Step 28. When everything is arranged as you wish, just draw some stems to connect it all. Add a new layer and place it on top of the flower pot but underneath all the other layers. Set your foreground color to #3D513B and your background color to null. Choose your draw tool, freehand line, size about 3-4. Draw stems to your leaves, flowers, and bud clusters. Step 29. Save as a master psp file with all layes intact - that way you can go back later and change things as you wish. Then, hide the background layer and merge visible layers.
 And that's it! I'd love to see your creations, and as always, please let me know if you experience any difficulties with this tutorial.
5/27/04 Note: I have made a country cupboard tutorial, along with items to place on it. This geranium is one of those items.
All of the items on the cupboard can be found here here.
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