DIY "Stamped" Digital Wallpaper w/o Photoshop + Free Citrus Wallpapers

Left click to download

While I was busy revamping an old Monday in Wonderland as a printable for my email subscribers, I discovered an easy technique for making a fun, patterned digital wallpaper! And then, upon adding a little color, I ended up with a ton of fun wallpapers and wanted to share them with you and show you how it's done. Now, as you may know, I’m trying to make it by without Photoshop for the time being, so this easy technique will only use PicMonkey and Paint! Also, you can click to download all the wallpapers throughout this post so yay for you getting free things!

And I don’t have much else to say for this intro so let’s just get into it!

For a 2-color pattern (above):

Step 1

Draw a simple, repeatable, silhouette design with black pen onto white paper. You can also use online clipart images, but I kind of liked the messy, imperfect vibe I got from my own drawing!

Then make your image digital! You can either take a photo of your drawing in bright light (without shadows) or scan it in. Either way, you will want to decrease shadows, increase highlights, and ramp up exposure and brightness until the image is completely black with a blank, white background. If you notice any uneven or patchy lines in the image, the simple brush and eraser tools in Paint can be used to carefully clean up the lines. I like using “oil brush” because it is wide and has soft edges. As you clean the image up, also utilize the zoom feature to make things easier.

When you are happy with the solidity of the image, crop as closely to the edges of the silhouette as you can, and save as a JPEG or PNG.

Step 2

You now want to create a small sample of your total pattern that you can later replicate onto a bigger scale. I found this easiest to do in PicMonkey, although it can be accomplished with Paint as well.

Go to the PicMonkey website and select “design”, choosing whatever “canvas” size you like. Then, click on Overlay > Your Own, and insert your black and white silhouette onto the canvas. Decrease the size to your liking, so that you can fit 5-10 copies of the image on the canvas. Once it’s the right size, right click, and select “duplicate image.” From there, you move and rotate the “overlays” to create a sample of the pattern. Once again, save this image as a jpeg.

You can make this sample randomized or grid-like, depending on the image being used. The easiest way I found to make a standardized, gridded pattern was to actually insert a grid as an overlay first, then delete it once all the silhouette overlays were in place.

Left click to download

Step 3

Repeat step 2, this time starting with a canvas to the dimensions of the wallpaper you want. There are cropping options for an iPhone, iPhone 6, and the dimensions of your computer screen within PicMonkey to simplify this process. Don’t forget that if you want to make multiple sizes, work from biggest to smallest to speed up the process (by taking the big image and cropping it down to smaller sizes).

Also, this time you will be inserting the sample of the pattern again and again the create a fully stamped background. You can either keep each sample block the same, or utilize the flip and rotate options to keep the background random. Fill the entire canvas with pattern!

If need be, insert the original, single silhouette as an overlay, shrink it to match the rest of the pattern. and use these individual shapes to fix any awkward white spaces.

Left click to download

Step 4

To make the background 2 colors, you first need to “combine all image elements” with the button next to the settings gear in the tool bar above your canvas. This will flatten everything into one image for your next step. Then, go to Effects > Warhol, and pick the two colors you think best work together for your background! Save and you’re are done.

You can also download the black and white version of this citrus print and use the Warhol effect to play with colors yourself!

Left click to download

For a multi-color pattern:

In Step 2, just change the color of the individual overlays! This should be easy to do if the images are completely black and white. Additionally, it is easy to use the eyedropper thingy to match repeated colors throughout your sample. Then just create repetitions of those colors throughout your total image. To color the background, I combined all image elements, then adjusted the temperature of the image down slightly, although you could also use the "texture" tool, like I did in my Gold-Foil and Watercolor Text Art Tutorial.

Left click to download

For a pattern around text:

Either draw and digitize, or digitally create your text, and save it in black and white with minimal white space around it. You will insert this text as an overlay onto a blank canvas of your desired dimensions, just like you did with the pattern. (You could also skip saving the text separately, and just combine image elements after the text is in place, but I liked being able to move it easily as a unit and use it in wallpapers of multiple dimensions.)

Repeat steps 1-3, with or without multi-color, getting each pattern sample as close as you can to the central text. (Don’t’ forget that you can right click and “send to front”, etc to change the order of the overlays on the canvas.) Then, use the individual overlay of the image to fill awkward white spaces as you did in step 3. Following this, you would combine the image elements, and use the Warhol effect if you are going with 2 colors like the image above!

And because I do this out of love, I did a little cropping so that you can get any of the designs above for your cell phone too!

Click here for the lemonade phone wallpaper

Click here for the multi-colored citrus phone wallpaper

Click here for "When life gives you lemons" phone wallpaper

I hope you enjoy these fun, citrusy wallpapers, and I look forward to seeing your own versions, for any season or fruit! I've loved designing these guys honestly, and am so so happy to share!

UPDATE: Some people have been having trouble with a couple links so try this!
Multi-colored citrus wallpaper
Lemons quote computer wallpaper

Stay lovely,

PS: Sign up for my email list for a printable, 4x6 version of the "When life gives you lemons" quote that you can color and hang up yourself! And other free goodies, and very sparse emails, I promise! Okay, bye!