//Fade the picture into the background\\

Make your picture and save it.  Now open your picture, yep the same one you just saved.

Now select your dropper tool: dropper

Now select the color from that picture you want your background to be, I'd click one of the darkest colors on the pic but not the darkest, but thats just me.

Now go to your flood fill tool then click on your pictuer.

Now you picture should be all one color.

Click on save, then save as, save it as something like mybackground.  Just don't save it as the same as your original picture.

Now go back to file, then to open and open your original picture.

Select your pan tool, its the arrow at the top left.

Right click on the picture, and select copy

Move the picture down till you can see the background picture you just created.

Right click, paste

paste as new layer

Now select the eraser tool

Now!

beside the X, Presents, and the drop down....

click on the drop down

Find a brush that works for you and click OK

You might want to click a brush that has a fade out effect, I've found they work the best.

Now the next part is strictly up to you, it just depends on how much you want to fade out.

After you get the effect you want go to file, and click save as and save it.

That's it.