Make a Cut-Paper Collage Flier for a Spice Shop

1. Choose File → New and make a 1200 × 1600 px document.
2. Click the top ruler at x 70, 600 and 1130 to drop three vertical guides, and the left ruler at y 70 and 1530 for two horizontal ones. They mark a margin and the centre line.
3. Click Background, set the foreground to #B48A5C and choose Edit → Fill. Choose Filter → Add Noise… with Amount 7, Mono and Gaussian.
4. Double-click Layer 1 and rename it Paper Mottle. Choose Filter → Clouds… with Scale 4. Open the effects drawer (the ✦ button on the layer's row), set the blend mode to Soft Light and close the drawer. Click the opacity figure on the row and set it to 40%.
5. Click Add Layer, name it Paper Fibers, choose Filter → Fibers… and click Apply. Set it to Soft Light at 14%.

1. Click New Group at the bottom of the Layers panel and name it Map. Click Add Layer (it goes inside the group) and name it Map Edge. It stays empty for now.
2. Drag the Blaeu map file from your desktop onto the canvas. Lopsy shrinks it to fit the page width and puts it on a new layer above Map Edge. Rename it Blaeu Map.
3. Press Cmd+D, pick the Move tool and drag the map straight up by about 300 px, so the two cartouches sit just under the top of the page.

1. Pick the Lasso. Draw a torn rectangle just inside the map's left, top and right edges, coming back across a little below the middle (around y 600), with the right side a touch higher than the left. Wiggle the pointer a few pixels in and out as you go. Small, irregular steps look torn.
2. Choose Select → Inverse and press Delete, then Cmd+D.
3. Choose Filter → Hue/Saturation… and set Saturation to -40 and Lightness to 4. That softens the hand-colouring so the map sits back behind the type.

Real torn paper shows a white core along the rip. You'll fake that with a slightly bigger white shape underneath.

1. Click Map Edge. Set the foreground to #FBF6EA. Lasso the same torn rectangle again, about 7 px further out all round and a little rougher, then Edit → Fill and Cmd+D. The white peeks out unevenly around the map.
2. Click Blaeu Map and Add Layer. Name it Tea Stain. Cmd-click the Map Edge thumbnail to select the whole scrap, fill it with #C8955A and deselect. Set it to Multiply at 30%. The map's cool greys warm up to match the kraft.
3. Click the Map group row and pick the Move tool. Handles appear around the whole scrap. Drag the round rotation handle at the top-right corner a little upward to tilt the scrap about 2.5° anticlockwise, then press Esc.
4. Click the arrow on the Map row to collapse the group.

1. With the collapsed Map group selected, click Add Layer and name it Turmeric Disc Edge. It goes in above the group, not inside it.
2. With the Lasso, draw a rough circle about 610 px across, centred on 600, 870. It overlaps the bottom of the map a little. Fill it with #FBF6EA and deselect.
3. Add Layer, name it Turmeric Disc, and draw a slightly smaller, smoother circle (about 600 px) on the same centre. Fill it with #D69A3A. While it's still selected, choose Filter → Add Noise… with Amount 14, Mono and Gaussian, then deselect.
4. Click Turmeric Disc Edge, open the effects drawer and turn on Drop Shadow: Offset X 6, Offset Y 10, Blur 14, Opacity 45.

The shadow goes on the lowest layer of the disc, so it falls under the white rim as well.

1. Click Turmeric Disc, then drag the nutmeg plate onto the canvas. Rename the new layer Nutmeg Plate.
2. Pick the Magic Wand. Set Tolerance to 24 and untick Contiguous, so one click catches every patch of white, including the gaps between the leaves. Click the white near the top-left corner.
3. Choose Select → Grow…, enter 1 and click Apply. The extra pixel eats the pale fringe the JPEG leaves around every edge.
4. Press Delete and Cmd+D. Everything on the plate is now a cut-out on transparency.

Three of the fruit studies around the bottom of the plate become separate pieces for later.

1. With the Lasso, draw loosely around the opened yellow fruit at the bottom right. Keep the little white crinkled diagram above it outside your line. Press Cmd+X, then Cmd+V. The fruit pastes back in exactly the same place on its own layer. Rename it Nutmeg Fruit.
2. Pick the Eraser, set its Size to 22, and click once on the small plate number 7 printed beside the fruit.
3. Click Nutmeg Plate again. Lasso the halved fruit with the red mace (bottom centre). Keep your line below the end of the branch's stem, which comes down just above it. Cut, paste, rename it Mace Half, and erase its number 8.
4. Click Nutmeg Plate. With the Elliptical Marquee, drag an oval around the pale, veined whole nutmeg halfway up the left side (not the darker ones at the bottom). Cut, paste, rename it Whole Nutmeg, and erase the 10 under it.
5. Click the eye on each of the three new layers to hide them for now. They come back near the end.

1. Click Nutmeg Plate. With the Lasso, draw around the branch: out round each leaf tip, in close to the stem, and around (not through) the little numbered diagrams and the plate's title. You don't need to hug the leaves. The background is already transparent, so a loose line is fine.
2. Choose Select → Inverse and press Delete. The diagrams, labels and title disappear.
3. One diagram, the round pollen disc on the right, sits so close to a leaf that the Lasso can't get between them. Drag an Elliptical Marquee over just the disc and press Delete.
4. Deselect and rename the layer Nutmeg Branch.

1. Cmd-click the Nutmeg Branch thumbnail and pick the Move tool.
2. Hold Cmd and drag the bottom-right handle in towards the top-left until the branch is about 62% of its size (roughly 550 px across). Press Esc.
3. Drag the branch so it's centred on about 400, 850, over the left half of the disc. Its top leaves tuck up towards the map.
4. Deselect, open the effects drawer and add a Drop Shadow: Offset X 5, Offset Y 8, Blur 10, Opacity 40.

1. Click Turmeric Disc (so the ginger goes behind the branch) and drop in the ginger plate. Rename it Ginger Plant.
2. Wand out the white exactly as before: Tolerance 24, Contiguous off, click the white, Grow 1, Delete, Cmd+D.
3. This plate's diagrams are scattered around the plant, so loop each one instead of tracing the plant. With the Lasso, draw a loose loop around the three flower diagrams at the left. Then hold Shift and loop each of the other groups: the petal and stamen diagrams lower down on the left, the two seed sections at the bottom right, the caption under the roots, the page number and the plate title at the top right. Shift adds each loop to the selection.
4. Press Delete and Cmd+D.

1. Cmd-click the Ginger Plant thumbnail. With the Move tool, Cmd-drag the bottom-right handle until the plant is about 40% of its size, then press Esc.
2. Drag it so it stands to the right of the nutmeg branch, centred on about 910, 900. The two plants should only just meet, not tangle.
3. Cmd-click the thumbnail again and drag the top-right rotation handle down a little to lean the plant about 6° clockwise. Press Esc.
4. Add a Drop Shadow like the branch's, with Opacity 35.

The ginger's long root hairs would run straight into the fruit studies you'll put below. They'll be hidden under the offer note later, so a straight cut is fine.

1. Drag a Rectangular Marquee from about 640, 1160 to past the right edge of the page at 1200, 1300, just under the knobbly rhizome.
2. Press Delete and Cmd+D.

The title goes on two strips of torn paper, each built in its own group so you can tilt it as one piece.

1. Click the top row in the Layers panel (Nutmeg Fruit). Click New Group and name it Nutmeg Label.
2. Add Layer inside it, called Nutmeg Label Paper Edge. Lasso a strip about 880 × 200 px centred on 520, 205: a straight top edge (it was cut with scissors) and ragged ends and bottom. Fill it with #FBF6EA.
3. Add Layer called Nutmeg Label Paper. Lasso the same strip about 6 px smaller on the torn sides, and fill it with #A33A26. While it's selected, add noise: Amount 14, Mono, Gaussian. Deselect.

1. With Nutmeg Label Paper selected, pick the Text tool. Set Abril Fatface, size 172, colour #F3E8CF.
2. Click in an empty patch near the bottom-left of the page and type NUTMEG. Press Tab to finish.
3. In the Text panel, set Letter spacing to 6.
4. With the Move tool, drag the word onto the strip and centre it. Use the arrow keys for the last few pixels. Aim for equal space above and below the capitals (about 45 px).

1. Click the Nutmeg Label group row. With the Move tool, drag the top-right rotation handle up a little to tilt the whole label about 3° anticlockwise. The type rotates with its paper and stays editable.
2. Press Esc and collapse the group.

Repeat the last three steps for a second label, so the two names look as if they were cut from different printed papers:

1. Click the collapsed Nutmeg Label row and add a group called Ginger Label.
2. Build an edge layer and a paper layer as before: a strip about 760 × 180 px centred on 710, 425, filled with #3D5A3A, with noise 14.
3. Type GINGER in Alfa Slab One, size 132, colour #F3E8CF, letter spacing 4, and centre it on the strip.
4. Tilt the group about 2° clockwise and collapse it.

1. Click the collapsed Ginger Label and add a group called Ampersand. Inside it, add a layer called Ampersand Paper.
2. Lasso a slightly rough circle about 164 px across, centred on 205, 430, in the gap left of the GINGER strip. Fill it with #F3E8CF, deselect, and add a Drop Shadow: Offset X 3, Offset Y 5, Blur 6, Opacity 45.
3. Type & in Abril Fatface, size 150, colour #A33A26, letter spacing 0. Centre it on the disc, then collapse the group.

Abril's ampersand is bold enough to read at a distance. A thin script ampersand at this size reads as a squiggle.

1. Click Ampersand, add a group called Dymo Label, and inside it a layer called Dymo Tape.
2. Drag a Rectangular Marquee about 410 × 58 px under the left half of the title, from about 130, 538.
3. Switch to the Elliptical Marquee. Hold Shift and drag a circle 58 px across over the left end of the rectangle, centred on its end. Do the same at the right end. You get a rounded strip, like label tape.
4. Fill it with #18181A, add noise Amount 3 (Mono, Gaussian), and deselect. Add a Drop Shadow: Offset X 2, Offset Y 4, Blur 4, Opacity 50.

1. Add Layer called Dymo Sheen. Cmd-click the Dymo Tape thumbnail.
2. With the Rectangular Marquee, hold Shift and Alt together and drag a rectangle over the top half of the tape, a little wider than it. Shift+Alt keeps only the overlap, so you're left with the tape's top half.
3. Fill it with white, deselect, and set the layer to 18%. That's the glossy plastic catching the light.

1. Click Dymo Sheen. Type SPICE MERCHANTS in Staatliches, size 40, colour #EFEEE6, letter spacing 7, and centre it on the tape. Name the layer Dymo Type.
2. Add a Drop Shadow with Offset X 0, Offset Y 2, Blur 1, Opacity 70. That's the dark lower edge of each pressed letter.
3. Choose Layer → Duplicate Layer. On the copy, turn on Color Overlay in #D9D7CD.
4. Click the original Dymo Type underneath, turn on Color Overlay in white, pick the Move tool and press Up once. A 1 px white edge now shows along the top of every letter, like embossed tape.
5. Click the Dymo Label group, tilt it about 3° anticlockwise, and collapse it.

1. Click Nutmeg Branch and add a group called Spices. It sits above the botanicals but under the three fruit studies.
2. Drop the spice photo onto the canvas. Rename it Spice Photo.

This photo has soft grey shadows on its white backdrop, so it needs a much wider tolerance than the plates.

1. Pick the Magic Wand, set Tolerance to 150 with Contiguous off, and click the white near the top-left of the photo.
2. Grow by 1, press Delete and Cmd+D.

A little grey contact shadow still clings to the bottom of each piece.

1. Cmd-click the Spice Photo thumbnail.
2. Choose Select → Shrink…, enter 2 and click Apply.
3. Choose Select → Inverse, press Delete, then Cmd+D. The outer 2 px of every piece goes, and the grey goes with it.

You only need two pieces from this photo.

1. With the Lasso, draw a loose shape around the right-hand star anise, keeping the clove just above its top-right arm outside your line. Cut and paste it, and name it Star Anise.
2. Click Spice Photo. Lasso a narrow band along the right-hand cinnamon stick only, leaving out the small star anise next to it. Cut and paste it, and name it Cinnamon Stick.
3. Click Spice Photo and click the bin icon at the bottom of the Layers panel to delete the rest.

1. First click the eyes on Nutmeg Fruit, Mace Half and Whole Nutmeg to show them again. You'll place them in the next step.
2. Cmd-click the Cinnamon Stick thumbnail. With the Move tool, Cmd-drag the bottom-right handle to scale it to about 75%.
3. Drag the top-right rotation handle to turn it about 18° anticlockwise. Press Esc.
4. Drag it into the empty kraft on the left, centred on about 165, 985, so it runs from the left edge across the branch's lowest leaf.

Place each study the same way: Cmd-click its thumbnail, scale it with the corner handle, turn it with the rotation handle, press Esc, then drag it into position.

• Mace Half: about 80%, turned about 10° anticlockwise, low in the bottom-right quarter, just right of where the tag will go (around x 800).
• Nutmeg Fruit: full size, turned about 8° clockwise, to its right, near the corner.
• Whole Nutmeg: about 70%, turned about 25° clockwise, tucked into the gap above the other two.

Keep the three studies about 40 px clear of the ginger above. If they touch, the fruit looks as if it's growing out of the ginger root.

1. Cmd-click the Star Anise thumbnail and click Flip Horizontal in the Move tool's options bar. A mirrored copy looks less like the same photo pasted twice. Press Esc.
2. Cmd-click it again, scale it to about 70% and drag it to 92, 700, just under the left end of the map.

Give Cinnamon Stick, Star Anise, Mace Half, Nutmeg Fruit and Whole Nutmeg the same Drop Shadow: Offset X 4, Offset Y 7, Blur 7, Opacity 45. Keeping every shadow falling down and to the right is what makes separate pieces look like one pile of paper on one table.

1. Click Dymo Label, add a group called Price Tag, and inside it a layer called Tag Card.
2. Press Cmd+' to show the grid, and make sure Snap is ticked in the options bar. Drag a Rectangular Marquee from about 56, 1152 to 680, 1552. The corners click onto grid lines, so the card comes out square and even.

1. Pick the Lasso. Hold Alt and draw a triangle over the top-left corner of the selection, cutting about 48 px off each side. Release, then do the same at the bottom-left corner. Alt subtracts from the selection.
2. Fill it with #F3E8CF, add noise Amount 4 (Mono, Gaussian), and deselect. Press Cmd+' to hide the grid.

1. Add Layer called Tag Eyelet. With nothing selected, click once (no drag) with the Elliptical Marquee to open its exact-size dialog, and enter 76, 1328 to 124, 1376 for a 48 px circle. Fill it with #C9A56E.
2. Click Tag Card. Make a 24 px circle on the same centre (88, 1340 to 112, 1364) and press Delete. Click Tag Eyelet and press Delete again, so the hole goes through both layers. Deselect.
3. Give Tag Card a Drop Shadow: Offset X 4, Offset Y 8, Blur 9, Opacity 45.

This is the second thing anyone should read after the shop's name, so make it big.

1. Click Tag Eyelet. Pick the Text tool and set Alfa Slab One, size 78, colour #A33A26. In the Text panel, click Align center.
2. Drag a text box from 140, 1172 to 670, 1330. That makes area text, which centres each line in the box. Type GRAND, press Return, type OPENING, and press Tab.
3. In the Text panel, set Line height to 1 and Letter spacing to 1. Nudge the block so it sits centred on the tag's body, to the right of the eyelet (about x 405).
4. Click Tag Eyelet (the rule can share that layer: both are printed on the card). Pick the Pencil, size 3, colour #231A18. Click just under the left end of OPENING and Shift-click under its right end, then draw a second line a few pixels below the first.

1. Click Tag Eyelet. Set Special Elite, size 34, colour #231A18, with Align center still on.
2. Drag a text box from 140, 1372 to 670, 1520 and type three lines: Saturday 14 November, 10 am – 6 pm and 214 Clove Street. Press Tab.
3. Set Line height 1.3 and Letter spacing 0. Centre the block under the rule, leaving about 50 px below the last line.

1. Click Tag Card and Add Layer called Twine.
2. Pick the Brush: size 6, hardness 80, colour #A93226. Drag a gentle curve from the eyelet up and out past the left edge of the page.
3. Give it a small Drop Shadow (Offset Y 4, Blur 3, Opacity 45).
4. Click the Price Tag group, tilt it about 3° anticlockwise, and collapse it.

1. Click Price Tag, add a group called Note, and inside it a layer called Note Paper.
2. Lasso a strip about 480 × 108 px centred on 880, 1112, with straight long sides and torn short ends. It covers the cut ends of the ginger roots. Fill it with #F3EAD6, add noise Amount 6, deselect, and add a Drop Shadow (Offset X 3, Offset Y 5, Blur 6, Opacity 40).
3. With Note Paper still selected, pick the Pencil at size 2 in #9DB4C8. Click near the left end of the strip, a little below its middle, and Shift-click near the right end.
4. Type first scoop's on us! in Caveat, size 60, colour #231A18, letter spacing 0. Move it so the bottoms of the letters sit right on the blue rule. Only the p should dip below it.
5. Click the Note group, tilt it about 4° clockwise, and collapse it.

1. Click Note and add a group called Tape. Each strip goes on its own layer inside it.
2. For each strip, Lasso a long thin rectangle about 40 px wide with straight long sides and ragged short ends, as if torn off a roll. Fill it with #E6D8A6, add noise Amount 6, deselect, and set the layer to 78% so the paper shows through.
3. Make three: one 150 px long across the map's top-left corner (turned about 40° anticlockwise), one across its top-right corner (turned the other way), and a shorter one standing almost upright over the left end of the note. Collapse the Tape group.

One shared texture over the top makes the photos, prints and papers look printed together.

1. Click the collapsed Tape group and Add Layer called Paper Grain. Fill it with #808080, add noise Amount 18 (Mono, Gaussian), and set it to Overlay at 22%.
2. Add Layer called Top Fibers. Run Filter → Fibers… and set it to Soft Light at 12%.

1. Click the green sparkle button at the right of the Project row (the top row of the Layers panel) to open the document's adjustment stack.
2. Expand Color Grading. Click the Shadows tab and set Hue 22 and Saturation 24. Click Highlights and set Hue 50 and Saturation 12.

The shadows warm towards brown and the highlights towards gold, which pulls the cool map and the green prints into the same light as the kraft.

1. Click Add Adjustment at the bottom of the drawer and choose Vignette. Set its Vignette slider to 14. Keep it light. Much more and the corners start to look like dirty glass.
2. Close the drawer, press Cmd+; to hide the guides, and step back.

Export the flier with File → Quick Export PNG, and save it with File → Save Project so you can change the date for the next event.