Pretty Flower Embellishment in Gimp With Checkerboard and Gemstone Center

This is a tutorial for a pretty flower digi dcrapping embellishment you can make in Gimp with a nicely contrasting checkerboard and gemstone Center.
This tutorial assumes that you have Gimp installed on your computer and that you understand at least the basics of them both. Please refer to previous tutorials on this blog to learn more about these free programs and how to use them for scrapbooking.

►Fire up Gimp

►Go to the Toolbox and change the Foreground color to #e9967a (a pretty salmon)

►Now Choose the Ellipse or circle tool create an ellipse, which will form our basic petal in the center top of your image (the size I made it was 102 x 164 px). Select bucket tool and fill the petal with the pretty Salmon color. Copy the petal and paste it, now click on the Move tool, which tool No. 12 at the top of the Toolbox, and move it to the spot directly beneath the first petal vertically. Now Copy, Paste, and select the Rotate tool, which is 3 tools away from the Move tool and by clicking again on your petal, rotate it to be horizontal to the other two petals. Choose the move tool and drag it to be between the two previous petals on a horizontal position. Copy, paste, and drag the copy to the opposite side.
Now we have our basic flower shape. We will now work on the decorative center. Click on the Ellipse tool and make a circle that will cover the center of our flower.
►Go to Layer, New Layer. Change the Foreground color to Black and fill the circle with the color. Go to Blur, Gaussian Blur and blur the Black circle by 10 px.
►Now go to Select, Shrink, and shrink the selection by 4 px. Now go to the Filters menu, choose Render, Pattern, Checkerboard. When the menu opens, set the checkerboard size to 14.
Go to Select, None.
►Then go to File, New. In the new Image, choose a transparent background. Create a circle with the Ellipse Tool. Go to the Blend Tool and from the drop down menu, choose Golden and fill your selection with Gold.
►Go to Select, Shrink and Shrink by 15 px.Add a new Layer. Choose the Bucket Tool and from pick Pattern Fill, from the drop down menu pick Burlwood. Fill your selection with it. Go to Select, Shrink and shrink your selection by 10 px. Add a new Layer.
►Change the Foreground color to #f32c2c and the Background color to #e37e25. In the Blend menu, choose FG to BG (HSV counter-clockwise) Now with the Blend tool, create a Linear gradient from top to bottom across the new selection.
►Change the Foreground color to #fbed05 and choose the brush Circle Fuzzy 19, move the opacity to 51.5 and the Scale 1o 10.00, and make a bright spot of color on the upper left side of your gemstone. Now go to Filters, Light and shadow, Lighting Effects, position the blue dot (the light source) at the left bottom side of the your gemstone, corresponding with the upper shine we just made.
Choose Layer, Merge Down. Then select the current layer where your finish gemstone is and then select merge visible layers.
►Now Choose Scale. When the menu opens scale your gemstone down to a width of 114 and a height of 114 px and click ok. Copy the selection and return to your previous work and click on paste. Select the Move tool to center your gemstone on your flower in the middle of your checkerboard button. Click outside of the selection to anchor your pasted gemstone.

►Go to File and Save as a PNG,

►For some strange reason, I could not make the background transparent without saving the flower first. So Save it. Close it. Then Go to File, Open Recent and open it up again. Go to Layer, Transparency, and then, from the Toolbox, choose the little want tool and click ont he background of the image to select it, then hit Ctrl + X, to delete the background. Go to Filters, Blur, then go to Filters Light and Shadow, Drop Shadow.
Save your flower again.

Done!

Transcendent Love...

Button with Bling for Your Scrapbooking Photos

Skip the usual way of embellishing the corners of a photo and use this button with a little bit of bling to it!

This tutorial assumes that you have Gimp installed on your computer and that you understand at least the basics so that you can follow the directions of the tutorial.
►Fire up Gimp.
Make a New Image going to File, New. Choose the size you want, click on Advanced Options and choose a Transparent Background.
Pick the Ellipse or Circle tool and draw a circle inside your selection. Give it a size of 250 pixels x 256 pixels (you can type those numbers in the toolbox of the Ellipse Select you have currently active.)
Click on the Foreground color and when the menu opens, change it to Black. Using the Bucket Tool, fill your Circle with Black. Go to Select, Shrink, and shrink your selection by 10 pixels (you will have now a circle with a Black Border.)
►Go to Layer, New Layer. Change your Foreground color to White. Fill your new selection with White using the Bucket tool.

While the new White circle is still selected, go to Filters, Artistic, Cubism, and select the following settings:
Tile size: 1.3, and Tile saturation: 2.4, leave rest as is and click OK. Now you have some Bling around your Black edge. Go to Select, Shrink, and shrink the selection by 30 pixels.
►Go to Layer, New Layer. On the Toolbox, Choose the Gradient or Blend tool and make sure it is set to Linear Shape, then, clicking on the Gradient color, scroll down to Golden. Fill your little center with it by making a straight down stroke with your mouse. Now go to Select, Shrink, and shrink the selection by 20 pixels, that is to give a golden border to our gem. Again, go to Layer, New Layer. Then, click on the Foreground color and change it to #f30a0a, a rich red. Then click on the Background and change it to #750001, a deep maroon. Now pick the Gradient or Blend Tool and tick on Adaptive Supersampling and for the Shape, choose Radial.
►In the Gradient color, choose FG to BG (RGB) now, draw the gradient from top to bottom of your circle.
Now Change the Foreground color to #ffffd9, and select the paintbrush tool, from the different brushes, select the brush Fuzzy Select 17, drag the lever of Opacity to 55.0 and the lever of Scale to 5.00 and click twice on the upper left of our gem. Choose Select None. Go to Layer, Merge Down.
Then, File, Save As, and choose Select File Type (By Extension) and save as a PNG.

Abounding in Hope