How To Create Digital Paper In Illustrator

With less than 3 weeks until Christmas, it's a good time to start wrapping the presents and sending out holiday cards. This new tutorial is here to help you create unique Christmas themed patterns and digital papers to give your holiday projects a more personal touch.

christmas themed digital paper

I'm using Adobe Photoshop CS5, but you can use this tutorial as a guide even if you prefer other graphic editors.

This pattern is made with the free dingbats I've shown you earlier. You have to download and install the fonts before starting. Please remember that these are free for personal use only. If you want to sell your digital papers, make sure you purchase a commercial license.

This tutorial follows the same steps shown here. Let's get started.

Step 1: How to make a Christmas themed seamless pattern

First, open a new image. I've set mine to 200x200px at 72 pixels/inch. Always use a bigger pixel density if you want to print your work. I always leave the white background and unlock the layer before starting.

You can make this with digital stamps or clip-art, brush sets, or you can even draw some Christmas themed images with your mouse (you can do this in Adobe Illustrator or a free software such as Inkscape).

add the images you want using the Text Tool or drag and drop the clip art onto the canvas
you can leave them all black (I'll show you how to change them later) or use a different color for each shape you add
make sure they are positioned in the center of the image, don't go over the edges

christmas themed digital paper

if you are using dingbats, then select all the layers except the background, then go to Layers/Rasterize/Type
after this merge all the layers
now go to Filter/Other and choose Offset
enter 100px in the Horizontal and Vertical text boxes and make sure Wrap Around is selected (the values are half of your canvas's Horizontal and Vertical values)

christmas themed digital paper

you can add other elements to fill the pattern, but don't go over the edges
make the white background invisible or delete it
go to Edit/Define Pattern to save it

christmas themed digital paper

Step 2: How to make your digital paper

open a new document and choose the size you want
make a new layer
go to Edit/Fill and choose your new pattern from the list

christmas themed digital paper

at this point there you will have a white background and black dingbats so we should change the colors
select the background layer (Layer 0) and fill it with the color of your choice using the Paint Bucket Tool
now choose a color you like for the images and make it the background color (see image below), select the second layer (Layer 1 in my example), and press Ctrl+Shift+Del

christmas themed digital paper

now let's choose a different color for some of our images
I've selected random images using the pen tool and colored using the method from above
if you are not familiar with the Pen Tool, you can select them using the Lasso Tool

christmas themed digital paper

And it's done. Now save your pattern and use it for your holiday projects!

Hey there! I'm Cristina, and I'm a self-taught graphic designer and illustrator. With an everlasting love of all creative endeavors, I found joy in sharing with others what I've learned over the years and helping bloggers and entrepreneurs bring their dreams to life through beautiful designs.