How to Make a Decorative Banner in Inkscape and Gimp

Open Inkscape.
►With the rectangle tool, make a rectangle of your own choosing (think about your project before choosing the size,) with th regular square edges.
Fill it with a color similar to the one of the texture you will be using later. Pull the rectangle to one side.
Make a narrow rectangle, fill it with a contrasting color or with the color of the first texture you will be using. Now elect the Star tool and make a star. Drag the star so that 1 of the points of the star is positioned right in the middle of your new narrow rectangle.
►While the star is still selected, hold down the shift key and choose both the narrow triangle and the star, now with both objects selected, go to Path, Difference, to cut a point in the center of your narrow banner.
There is only one problem, the edges are square. To solve that problem, go to Edit Paths by Nodes, (the tool right underneath the Arrow or Select tool) click on it, and then click on your narrow banner. You will notice that nodes appear. Pull carefully on the nodes until your have pointed ends and push in the side nodes
to balance the shape of your banner's ends until they look as if they had been snipped with scissors. Duplicate your narrow banner twice more. Make each small banner of a different color, just so that you are able to see each one when working with it.
►Drag each one and place it where you want it on top of the previous square banner. Because the narrow banners will be below the main banner, you must click on the 11th button on top of the page (counting from the left,) the Raise Selection to Top or Home tool.
►Once your banners are at the top, select all the objects with your mouse and go to object, Group.
Now you have a couple of choices. You can leave your banner as is, you can use SVG textures for each of your banners, or you can select your object, copy it, open gimp and apply textures there (I prefer to to that,) there are many, many free textures online to choose from and you can make your banners quite lovely with them.
►To fill your banners with different patterns, open Gimp and open your image there. Choose the Bucket tool, and the each texture you want to use,m filling each area with it. Then go to Layer, Merge Down, then save image as a PNG.
Done!

You can add other embellishments to your banners such as buttons, brads, staples, text, etc.

Bible Universe

Looking Forward to Spring Flower Embellishment

This is an easy tutorial for a quick flower embellishment which you can tailor to your own taste for that early Spring project you have in mind!

This tutorial assumes that you have Inkscape installed in your computer. It also assumes that you understand at least the basics of the software (take a look at previous tutorials to get more familiar with Inskcape!)

Let's start!

Fire up Inkscape.
Choose the Create cirlces, ellipses and arcs tool (or hit F5)
While holding down the shift key, make a circle in whatever color you like best. At the bottom of the page, I
clicked on the palette arrow at the right hand side and chose Windows XP Icons palette and picked the nice warm orange
this palette has. At the left hand side below that palette, right click on Stroke. When the little menu appears, choose Edit Stroke.
Then just click on the X, to remove the stroke.

Duplicate your circle 3 more times. Click on each individually to place them around an imaginary circle, forming the petals of a flower.
Click on the star tool and choosing a very light color make a small star. Push it to the bottom of your round of circles by clicking on the 8th button at the top of the page. Make another star,
and give it yellow color, this one bring it to the top by clicking on the 11th button (counting from the left,) at the top of the page.
Make a circle. Color it green and leave the stroke black, but right click on the Stroke to choose the Edit stroke menu, and when the menu appears,
choose Stroke Style, pick the third style of the list. Now with the select tool, click on the circle to add the stroke style. Make another circle.
Fill it iwth yellow, right click on the stroke and then on Edit Stroke, then click on the X to delete the stroke.
Choose Gradient, and fill your circle with a linear gradient. Now, Inkscape will give you a gradient that is yellow and then transparent. We dont want that. We want a linear gradient that goes from yellow to orange.
To get that, we will right click on the fill then Edit Fill, now under the color wheel, you will see the Alpha channel, click on it to add a color that will substitute the transparent (in this case, it will be orange),
now your gradient is supposed to go from yellow to orange. Click on the circle and drag it into the center of your flower. Now for the last touch, make a small line with the Draw Freehand tool using black as your color.
Duplicate it. Drag the line to place it in the center of the first star corner. Now duplicate your duplicate and drag it into the next corner. Double click on it so that little arrow handles will appear for you to turn it into the
direction it is supposed to go according to the direction of the petal. Continue this way until you have made that small black stroke on each star corner.
Now stroke with the mouse to select all your work. Go to Object, Group. Now Go to File, Export Bitmap and save your flower as a PNG file.

If you have Gimp, you can open your flower in Gimp and using the bucket tool, add pretty textures to it as you see below. You can also do the same in Inkscape using SVG files. (There are lots of free textures online that you can use.)

Experiment, and have fun!

Real Hope. . .