This tutorial will show how we can make a seamless pattern with Christmas theme from scratch. We will focus on using guides and defining patterns. Explore interesting effects that we can see from interleaving different colored stripes.

Preview of Final Image

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Create a document of size 200×200px. Fill the Background with #4B3510.
Make a simple horizontal rectangle selection. Select the Move tool and drag a vertical Guide to the center of the document. Notice that the Guide will snap automatically when its near to the center of the selection. Use the same method for the horizontal Guide. The intersection of this two Guides form the center point of the entire document.
Create a square selection with size 120×120px. Move the square selection so that it snap to the center point of the document. Drag Guides and snap them to the 4 borders of the square selection.
Make a new layer and fill the square selection with #F20231. Go to Select > Modify > Contract. Set the Radius to 20px to contract the selection. Press Delete. You should get something like what I have below.
Create a new layer. Set the foreground color to #34581B. Select the Pencil tool and set the size to 10px. Draw a large cross on this new layer as shown in the screenshot below.
Make another set of 4 Guides which is 15px away from the borders of the pink colored square.
Select both pink square and green cross layers, go to Edit > Transform > Rotate. Rotate these layers by 45 degrees
Create a new document with small size 1×2 px.
Using the Pencil tool with 1px size, paint a black dot on the top pixel of the document. Select the entire document, go to Edit > Define Pattern. Save and name the pattern as Stripe.
Select the pink square layer and create a Layer Mask on it. Select the Paint Bucket tool and choose Pattern mode. Find the Stripe pattern you made in the earlier step. On the Layer Mask of pink square, fill it with the Stripe pattern.
Repeat the same steps for the green cross. Select the Layer Mask of green cross, go to Image > Adjustments > Invert. You will get a nice interleave of pink and green stripes.
Duplicate the pink square layer. Select the duplicated layer, click on its Layer Mask, go to Image > Adjustments > Invert. This will interleave the stripes of both pink square layers. Move the duplicated pink square layer to the right till you get a nice pink diamond formed at the interleaved area.
Repeat the same steps for the other 3 corners of the original pink square layer.
Make a square selection from the 120×120 square Guides drawn much earlier. Go to Image > Crop. This will be your seamless pattern tile! Go to Edit > Define Pattern and save it as Christmas Tile.
To use it, simply select the Paint Bucket tool, set it to Pattern mode and choose the Christmas Tile. Fill document of any sizes with this self-created seamless pattern. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Thanks!