Polaroid  Cowboy Collage

First I opened a new document in photoshop and selected 1000x1000 pixels.  Then I clicked Control I to invert it to a black square.  then I chose image and canvas size and selected 1100x1100 pixels to put a white frame around the picture.  Next I again selected image canvas size and typed 1300 into the pixel box for height and anchored it to the top center  hit enter   This made a polaroid shaped frame.   I went over to the right of the screen to the layers menu and changed the name of the background layer.   I selected the inner square  with the magic select tool and hit del which erased the square.  then I hit deselect.  next I used the magic select tool to select the outer border and clicked.  then I chose fill from the edit menu and chose pattern and chose the third from the last of the patterns  white pattern.  hit enter and filled the frame.  I chose deselect  then used the magic select tool and selected the inner square and then layer style bevel and emboss  then increased size slightly and softened as much as I could by sliding the slider to the right all the way. I added a layer and then selected merge visable layers clicked save as .psd file.  then I hit select all copy and opened the family shot from the rodeo parade.   I went to the upper left corner and hit paste.  the frame appeared very large.  so I reduced its size  using free transform and placed the first frame over my husband's picture.  I hit enter then hit free transform to make the  frame the right size.  Then I chose Control J to copy the frame and control T to free transform and placed my other frames where I wanted them using the above sequence.    Select deselect.  When I had the frames where I wanted them I Placed a layer mask and hit edit fill and filled the background with white.  Then i selected the inner part of each frame and chose paste into.  this put the photo segment into the frames.  I repeated this for each frame.  I selected the layer for the each frame and clicked layer style and drop shadow to place shadows under the photos.  This was a really fun assignment.   I will use this in December to prepare my family photos.