Shadows

[gleason7476]

I would like to know how I can get a large mat to put words on. I just cut 'Mickey's Jingle Jungle Parade, welded them together, (and put Jingle under Mickey's, Jungle under Jingle, Parade under Jungle) and wanted to get a large red "blob" to put the words (which are now all welded together) on without any space showing. I have seen others do this, but how? Thanks for your help.

[gj1]

Put a selection box around them all and go copy and paste...then with the copy selected go to the Properties Panel and click on Appearance...where it says style-normal...click the drop down and choose shadow blackout. Then go to the arrow to increase the size of the shadow blackout right next to the style from 1.00 click the up arrow. Now, go to Object and break Apart and then Path Union. You have keep going back to the arrow in the Tool panel to get your selection box around everything in between these operations.

I am sorry if this is not very clear.