Valentine’s Day is coming and nothing says “I love you” quite like those awful tasting candy hearts in powdery, pastel colors. So let’s make some!

Start with a new document. I’m making mine 430×200px because I want to make a variety of hearts.

Create a new layer and grab your pen tool. Turn on the grid (Ctrl+J so that you have a guide to draw by. Using your pen tool, carefully draw out your heart shape. Don’t worry; it doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, it’s better if it’s not perfect. That’s why we’re not using the “heart” shape that comes with Photoshop. These things are made out of sugar, after all.

Once your heart is outlined, you can hide the grid.

Now Ctrl+Click on the heart path in the paths palette to load its selection and fill it with your choice of sickening pastel colors. I’m using #fff799).

Now apply the following Layer Styles to y our heart. Note that depending on the size of your heart, you may need to adjust the bevel width.

Great. Your heart should now be starting to have a little depth and texture, like so.

We’re not done yet, though. Now Ctrl+Click on the heart layer’s icon in the Layers palette to load its selection and create a new layer under it, between it and the background. Using your eyedropper tool, sample the color from the very top left of the yeart, then hit X to reverse the foreground and background colors and sample the very bottom right of the heart. You should then have a dark color as your foreground and the lighter one as your background. Hit X again.

In my case, the colors are #fffab5 and #c9b71c.

Now click the eye beside the heart layer in the Layers palette to hide it and fill the selection with a light to dark gradient at an angle matching the hidden hearts.

Keeping the selection active, hit Ctrl+Alt+Right Arrow Key followed by Ctrl+Alt+Down Arrow Key. Repeat both combinations a few times, until you’ve successfully distended the heart down and to the right a few pixels.

Now, un-hide the heart layer. Make the heart layer active and then hit Ctrl+E to merge it with the layer below.

Now we just need to do the text. Grab a nice, blocky serif font (I’m using Coper Std) and set the foreground color to a dark pink, like #ec0080. Enter the text for your heart. Make it center aligned, all caps and center it atop the candy. Increase the kerning to about 25 and decrease the leading to about 2pt smaller than the font size.

There’s just one problem. That text is too clean. Go to Layer – Rasterize – Type to convert the text to a bitmap. Now go to Filter – Blur – Gaussian Blur and enter an amount of 0.5.Now set your foreground color to #fdf69b and the background color to #ec0080. Click the “Preserve Transparency” icon for the type layer in the layers palette and go to Filter – Render – Clouds. This should soften your text up a fair bit.

We’re almost done, just one more step. To give the impression that the text was stamped onto the heart, we’re going to give it a very, very slight outer bevel, like so.

And that finishes up your candy heart!

Fresh Navigation Buttons.

Step one:

Start with a large black canvas. On your layers window make a new layer set, name it Fresh Navigation Tabs.
In a new layer draw a 114 x 25 pixels, #6FD325 rectangle. Cut the top left corner of your rectangle using your lasso tool.

Step two:

With your step one layer add the following layer styles:

Step three:

Choose your text tool and select font Arial from the font list. Set the size to 13 pt, bold, smooth and white for color. In a new text layer type in your first navigation link on your tab.

Step four:

Add the rest of your navigation links with their own tab.

Step five:

In a new layer draw a 1 pixel, black line across your navigation tabs.
Set your layers blending mode to Color Burn and set your opacity level to 16 %.

Step six:

Now duplicate your 1 pixel line and nudge the layer down by 4 pixels.

Step seven:

In a new layer draw a 488 x 15 pixels, black rectangle across your navigation tabs.
Set your layers blending mode to Lighten and add a stroke layer style:

Step 8:

Now duplicate your black rectangle layer from the last step and position it just on the middle of your tabs, modify the opacity level to 30%.

Final:

Fresh Navigation Buttons.

Design a Dark Website Header.

Step one:

Start with a large black canvas, on your layers window make a new layer set. Name it Dark Header.
Create a new layer then draw a 663 x 6 pixels, white rectangle.
Add the following layer styles:

Step two:

In a new layer draw a 5 x 24 pixels, white rectangle.
Set your layers blending mode to Darken and add a gradient overlay layer style:

Step three:

Duplicate your white rectangle layer from step two and make a pattern as shown on the picture below. To start out, copy your white rectangle 5 times.

Step four:

Now add more rectangle layer structures all over your current designs.

Step five:

In a new layer draw a 659 x 9 pixels, white rectangle on top of your current designs.
Set your layers blending mode to Darken and add a gradient overlay layer style:.

Step six:

Now in a new layer make a 666 x 5 pixels, #520000 rectangle above your current designs.
Add the following layer styles:

Step seven:

Again in a new layer make a 66 x 29 pixels, #520000 rectangle right above your last rectangle design.
Add the following layer styles:

Step eight:

Choose your text tool and set the font family to Arial, bold, 14 pt, strong and black for color. In a new text layer type in your name on your 66 x 29 pixels rectangle design.
Add the following layer styles:

Step nine:

Now set your font family to Franklin Gothic Demi, 11 pt, crisp and white for color. In a new text layer type in your navigation links with spaces between each link.
Add the following layer styles:

Final Image:

Design a Dark Website Header.

Fresh Navigation Tabs.
Create smooth spherical icons that can be used on anywhere from websites to local desktop. These icons are based lightly on web 2.0 style but also keep a stylish feeling to them, keeping the appeal.

Step one:

Start with a white canvas. On your layers window make a new layer set, name it Icon. In a new layer draw a 106 x 106 pixels, #C50000 circle.
Add the following layer styles:

Step two:

In another new layer draw a similar white ellipse you see on the picture below, then use your elliptical marquee tool to cut half of the shape.

Step three:

With yoru step two layer set the blending mode to Darken then add a gradient overlay layer style.

Step four:

In a new layer draw a 106 x 106 pixels, black circle inside your current design.
Set your layers blending mode to Darken and add a stroke layer style:

Step five:

Now choose your text tool and set the font family to Wingdings, 72 pt, crisp and white for color.
In a new text layer type “[” and add the following layer styles:

Step six:

Now just duplicate your Icon layer set and edit your text to “>”.

Final:

Web 2.0 Icons.

Step one:

Start with a black canvas, on your layers window make a new layer set, name it Logo. Now choose your text tool and set font family to Wingdings, 60 pt, none and white for color. In a new text layer type “1″.

Step two:

Now set your font size to 39 pt. In a new text layer type “y”.

Step three:

Again change your font size to 36 pt. In a new text layer type “4″, move this arrow shape on the right side of your current design.

Step four:

Now change your font size to 30 pt and color to black. In a new text layer type “4″.
Set your layers opacity level to 40% and add a gradient overlay layer style:

Step five:

On your layers window merge your step three and step four text layer.
Duplicate your merged layer then select Edit above your screen then choose Transform and Rotate 90 CW. Relocate your duplicate layer on the bottom of your current design.

Step six:

Now choose your text tool and set the font family to Century Gothic, regular, 24 pt, crisp and white for color. In a new text layer type your name.
Now edit your font size to 12 pt. In a new text layer type your slogan below your name.

Step seven:

Now if you want to add some colors to your logo, modify the color of your first text layer and your name to #00D56E.

Final:

Web 2.0 logo.