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Creating Elements with Letters in Inkscape and Gimp



This is a super easy photo corner you can make in a jiffy and change in many ways to your heart's content.


  • Fire up Inkscape.
  • From the side toolbar, choose the text tool.
  • Select the Font Garamond, size 144, for the color, choose Black.
  • Click on the canvas and make the capital letter O.
  • Choose the Select or Arrow tool and select your O, drag one corner of the letter to make it even bigger. Now go to Edit, copy and paste 5 more copies of your original O.
  • Click on each O and drag it to position it overlapping the original O, right next to it but forming a chain, repeat with another O to form the bottom of your corner and then, drag the other two Os to overlap the top of the original, to form the rest of the corner chain.
  • Now, click on the Arrow tool again to choose it and drag a selection over all of your chain photo corner. You will see all of your Os selected. Now go to Object Group. This will join the links of your chain so that they will not come undone. Now go to File, Export Bitmap and choose PNG. Save your work.



  • Fire up Gimp.
  • Open your PNG file. 
  • Now choose the bucket fill and fill the chain corner with a pattern of your choice that you have preciously uploaded to be used in Gimp. Fill the chain photo corner element with the chosen pattern.
  • Now Choose Script-Fu, Bevel and Emboss.
  • Choose the following settings: Style: Outer Bevel; Depth: 5; Direction: Up; Gloss Contour: Linear; Highlight Color White; Shadow Color Black, and leave the rest as is.
  • Click OK. Let it apply.
  • Now go to Filters, Blur. 
  • Once the simple blur is applied, go to Layer, Merge Down.
  • Now, go to File, Save as, Save File Tpe (By Extension) and choose PNG, then say yes to merging layers and exporting, and you're set.




Bible Universe

Very Easy Fun Text in Gimp


This is a very simple tutorial which you can play around with until you can get the look you want for very fun and attractive text for your scrapbooking pages.
This tutorial assumes you have Gimp installed on your computer and that you have also downloaded some of the free patterns that are readily available online.

  • Open up Gimp.
  • Choose any size image you like.
  • Now look for a thick font that will show off the pattern that you will use.
  • I picked Accord Heavy SF Bold, size 76. Make sure your foreground color is Black (you can choose a background color of your choice, a gradient, or nothing. I chose to leave it blank.)
  • Click on the bucket tool and choose a pattern that you like (previously downloaded into your computer and placed in Gimp’s patterns folder.) Try not to choose a pattern that has White in it, because that will be mostly our Gloss color.
  • Now, right-click on the text layer that has your text in the layers menu, and choose Alpha to Selection. Now pick the Ellipse tool and draw an oval over top section of the text, leaving the bottom untouched.
  • Now choose White as your Foreground and a very light version of one of the colors of your pattern (in my case it was a light green.) Choose the blend or gradient tool and stroke from the bottom of your oval upward, filling the area with your gradient. Give it an opacity of 50% by moving the lever down in the toolbox. Go to Filters, Blur and then
  • Save. Got to File, Save as and then choose Select File Type by Extension and choose to save your text as a PNG.

That’s It! Experiment with different fonts and different patterns for different looks and add fun text to your pages, Enjoy!




Bible Universe