The possibilities of the simple shapes that we learned how to make on our last tutorial are so wide, that we will be exploring them a bit further, to give more ideas of what you can make to embellish your pages.
This tutorial assumes that you have Inkscape installed on your computer and that you have at least the basic
understanding of how it works. (Take a look at some of our previous tutorials and play around a bit until you understand the software enough to feel comfortable in doing this.)
I will not be making this very difficult, but when you are done with this tutorial, I suggest that you play around with the Spiro and make many other flourishes to get them down pat, so that the next time you want to use one, you can make your own without any difficulty.
►Fire up Inkscape.
►Select the Circle or Ellipse tool and while holding down the Ctrl key, create a circle by stroking with your mouse, give it an oval shape. Fill it with any color you prefer.
►Go to the bottom of the page and right-click on the Stroke and when the little menu opens, choose Edit Stroke and click on the X to take the stroke out. Select it by clicking the arrow a the top of sidebar, then copy it. Paste. Click on the copy and reduce its size.
►Drag it inside the previously made circle. Make sure that the smaller oval reaches almost to the edge of the original one. Then go to Object, Align and Distribute and Align the smaller Oval vertically and horizontally, so that it will really be in the middle of the previous oval.
►Now click on the original oval and while holding the shift key down, click on the smaller oval to select both of them, go to Path, and select Difference. You used the smaller oval to cut out the center of the larger oval and make it transparent.
►Choose the Ellipse or circle tool and make a circle, also holding down the Ctrl key to make it even. Right-click to take out the Stroke. Copy and paste or duplicate, make it smaller, drag into the center of the original circle. Align again as you did with the oval. Now, select both circles and go to Path, and select Difference. Now your circle has a transparent hole in the middle.
►Go to the Create Rectangles tool and select it. Make a square of any color and drag it to place it over the middle lower part of your circle. Select both the circle and the square. Now go to Path, Intersection, to use the square to cut off half of your circle and be left with an arch.
Now let's play with what we have!
There are endless combinations of lacy motifs, picture corners, frames, and all kinds of embellishments you can make now. Let's make this one.
►Select your oval, duplicate it 4 more times. Select your arch, duplicate it twice. One of the duplicate arches, make a little larger. Once you have it larger, duplicate it again of the same size, leaving the other one smaller, and just reserving the other one on the side for now.
►Drag the oval to where you're going to work. Drag another oval and place it on the bottom, to one side of the original oval. Click on it twice so that the rotation handles appear and turn it sideways a little bit. Drag another oval and place it on the opposite side and rotate it to the side a little bit. Now you have a 3-oval cluster. Bring the two larger arches and position them on either side of these 3 ovals, matching the edges as best you can. Bring the smaller arch and place it at the bottom of the design you have already made. Make any adjustments you like. When you're happy with it, stroke with your mouse to select all of the parts and go to Object, Group. Set that aside.
►Now, take the two other ovals and position them one on top of the other, overlapping them, like a chain.
Go to Object, Group. Bring the little two-link chain and position it beside one of the arcs, and copy the original design and place it on the opposite side of the chain. You can continue this until you have a row which you can use as a decorative border or even as a lace, depending on the color you choose to make it in.
This is my element without a texture or pattern:
►You can add a texture or a pattern to it and also a drop shadow.To add a pattern to your design, proceed as follows: Prepare a Jpeg image you'd like to use as a pattern or download one from the dozens of free images available online. Go to File, Import. Import your image a s Jpeg, select it, then use Edit, Objects to Pattern. Now your texture or pattern will be available in the Fill and Stroke dialog, and you can fill your design with it.
►To add a drop shadow, make a copy of your design, paste it on the side, change the color to black or dark gray, and then go to the Fill menu at the bottom of the page, under the palette bar and choose a blur you like. Drag it to the top of your design, then, click on the 8th button at the top of the page, to Lower selection to the Bottom, thus placing the blurred copy as a shadow underneath your design.
This the one I textured:
Encouraging Promises!
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