Photoshop Workshop (part 1/3)

Blur Border Effect 
To create this effect i firstly selected the image that i wanted to use 

I then selected the Rectangular Marque Tool and drew a rectangle within the image but leaving gaps at the end. I then went to Select>Inverse so that the gaps at the end were the main thing i was editing: 

After i'd inverted the border i went to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and changed the settings of how strong i wanted the blur to be for the border. Here is my final outcome: