A great way to shortcut some ideas or at least get a design started, is by looking at some custom photoshop brushes. There are thousands, if not more of bushes out there customized in tons of ways. For instance, I found two amazing brush sets from Smashing Magazine that are freebies. Check them out:
These brushes also can be handy in that they can can be scaled as large as needed, and can be edited in illustrator and re exported as your own customized brush. Brushes can help add the fine details to your design that you may not have time to create from scratch. They are excellent tools that in my opinion should not be overlooked.