Lets Play With Ovals, Part 2

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:

Experiment with new ways to position your pieces and come up with your own designs. Have fun!

Encouraging Promises!

Let's Play with Hollow Ovals!

A scrapbooker can never have enough embellishments! Especially those made by yourself, following your own taste and suited to your own personal projects. These tutorials aim at giving you the basic tools to produce such embellishments. Teaching you how to make and use the building blocks and encouraging you to make your own, following your imagination and taste, adapting them to your own scrapping themes.
Let's start!
Note-
This tutorial assumes that you have Inkscape installed on your computer and that you understand the basics of the software.

►Fire up Inkscape.

►Click on the Ellipse or circle tool and while holding the Ctrl key down stroke with your mouse to make an even Oval shape of any color you choose.
►At the bottom, left-hand of the screen, right below the palette, right-click stroke. When the little menu opens, select Edit stroke,and when the other menu opens, click on the X to get rid of the stroke. We will select a color later, but first, copy the oval you have made, and paste it somewhere on the side of the working area. Give your second oval another color, only so that you can see it and work with it better.
►Reduce the second oval a little bit and place it inside the first oval. Adjust the space it covers to your liking. Click on the center oval and while it is selected, go to Object, and down the menu to Align and Distribute. There you will select the third button on the top (Center on vertical axis) and the third button on the row below, (center on horizontal axis), so that the second oval will be perfectly centered within the larger one.
►Now click to re-select the smaller oval and then, holding the shift key, click on the larger oval to select it as well. Now, go to Path and click on Difference. You just used the little oval to cut an oval-shaped hole into the larger oval.
►Click on the hollow oval to select it and copy and paste (or duplicate it.) Select the square tool, and draw a square. Drag it to position it over the middle of the second hollow oval, and while it is selected, press shift and select the second hollow oval, now, while the two objects are selected, go to Path, Intersection. You just used the square to cut your second hollow oval in half.
►Now we can use these two objects to come up with an immense amount of decorative embellishments. Let's make one now!

►You have designed the building blocks to make all kinds of decorative bars, photo corners, flowers and other embellishments.

♪ To make a simple embellishment, copy the hollow oval 6 times, till you have 7 of them in total.
♪ Position them on the page so that they intersect each other like a chain. Cop your half oval and position them as you see them on the illustration.
♪ Make a small circle while holding down the Ctrl key sot hat the circle will be perfectly round. Take out the stroke as before. Position your small circle in between the two half ovals.
♪ Now, select all your work and got o Object, Group. Now that it will not fall apart, make a copy of it and color it black, on the little menu that you used to take out the stroke, select a blur of 4.0 for your black copy. ♪ Now place your original over it but a little bit to the side so that the blurred black copy will act as a shadow. Now, click on your original and change the color to anything, but to give it a delicate pastel pink, click on the RGBA square on the Fill menu, while the object you want to color is still selected and write the HEX #ee887a.
♪ Now your element has a drop shadow effect.
You can add a pattern or texture, you can experiment with special effects, just play with it and have fun!

Encouraging Promises!

Decorative Triangles Bar for Scrapbooking

This tutorial assumes that you have Inkscape installed on your computer and that you have at least a basic understanding
of how it works. Please refer to previous tutorials on this blog to learn the software a little bit.

♪ Fire up Inkscape.
♪ Click on the Create Stars and Polygons button and choose 3 corners to make a triangle, and a spoke ratio of 0.480, leave randomized alone.
♪ Now make a triangle by moving your mouse downward across the working area. Once you have your triangle, click on a green shade on the palette
at the bottom of the screen, just to fill your triangle. Now go to the Stroke (below the palette) and right click, when the little menu opens, choose Edit Stroke and click on the X on the menu that will open to take out the border.
♪ Now, in the same menu, click on the Stroke paint and where it says RGBA insert the following number: #9ACD32. This will turn your triangle to a pretty green.
Select your triangle and go to Edit, Copy, Paste. Click on the new item to select it and change its color to #3e8213f5, now, reduce it in size until it is about half of the size of the other one.
♪ Place it in the very center of the original triangle. While the smaller triangle is still selected, click on shift, and while holding it down, select the larger triangle as well. Now go Path, Difference. As you can see,
you just cut out the little triangle from the larger one. Click on your original triangle to select it and reduce it in size. Copy the triangle and paste it. Place the two triangles side by side so that they touch each other. Select them both and go to Object, Group. Now copy and paste as many times as you want to for your bar, placing the new triangles on a level with the others. Select them all and go to Object, Group.
♪ Click on the Circle tool. Make a small circle. Right-click on the Stroke to remove it. Change the color of your circle to match the color of your triangles. Copy your circle, Paste and drag into the middle of the first hollow triangle.
♪ Repeat with all the other triangles. Now Click on the Text Tool. Choose the Circle tool again and make a small circle, fill it with a contrasting green of your choice. Copy and Paste. Drag the new little circle to the center of the first circle inside the first triangle.
♪ Go to Object, then Align and Distribute, once the Menu opens, choose Center, to make sure your little circle is not off. Continue to drag copies of the little circle and place them in the center of the larger circle inside the triangle. Click on Center on Align and Distribute
to make sure they are all centered.
♪ Now select everything with your mouse and Go to Object, Group.
Export as a PNG bitmap.

Now you've got a simple but decorative bar to use for scrapbooking! It will look like this:

Play with different variations of this tutorial, use your imagination and creativity. Have fun with it, and then, apply your new bar to your next scrap project!

Done!

Pathlights. . .Worthwhile exploring!