I think weve all seen them by now. Those  layouts that look like they have the perfect scatter of beads or crystals or anything.  it looks totally random and natural. Then you go get the kit, and you see that perfect scatter wasnt included, the layout artist scattered them herself.  Using brushes, here is an easy way to create your own guide to scatter, or  great piles of scattered glitter.

To create guides for something like beads, we are going to start with a plain  round brush. ( you can find this brushes menu on the left of your screen, near the layers palate in the default workspace in PS CS3 )

next we are going to put some spacing on  our brush ( dont worry if yours doesnt fade out like the image, i had pen control on for this image )

Next we are going to add some randomness to the size

the last step is to  scatter the brushes

Now you are ready to use your brush! try it several times to get different variations ( make sure to save ones you like and just hide them in the layers palate ) and play with the settings themselves to get the perfect effect for your project

i increased the size of my brush, and this was my result. I could  do this on an extra layer on a layout, as a guide of where to size and place beads, and then delete it. Or I could use it to draw out a scatter, and then   apply a  bead style to  it to create my own scattered beads.

As an added variation, I chose one  of my grunge brushes and  added a few settings

With a glitter style applied to this, it would make a great pile of glitter, or "gold dust " as seen in  the " ...Baby Just Say Yes " kit.