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!

Easy Heart in Inkscape

This is a simple but fun tutorial on how to make an easy and quick heart embellishment for your digital scrapbooking.

This tutorial assumes that you have Inkscape installed on your computer and that you understand the basics of the software to be able to follow the steps. If you would like to learn a little bit about how to use Inkscape before you tackle this tutorial, please refer to previous tuts.


☼ Fire up Inkscape.

Choose the Polygon and Star tool and make a star, but select only 3 corners to shape it into a triangle.
Pick a color and draw your triangle. Right click on stroke(at the bottom of the page) and select Edit stroke, then click on the X to remove the stroke. Now select the triangle, and go to Path, Object to Path.
☼ Now your triangle is an Object. Choose the Nodes tool that is right below the Arrow on the sidebar. Click on the triangle and you will see that nodes appear. Push down gently on the center node at the top, to dip the center into the beginning of the shape of a heart.

☼ Now make sure the two remaining sides are even. Now click on the first node of the pointed edge on the right side to select it, go to the top of the page and counting from left to right, click on the 10th button (make selected node auto-smooth) and you will see how the pointed end of the heart turns into a smooth curve. Repeat with the opposite side. Now we have the basic shape of a heart.
☼ At this point, you can do a variety of things to embellish your heart. One of them is to add a gradient.
To add a gradient, simply choose gradient, pick Linear and stroke with the mouse to add it. You will notice that your shape disappears at the bottom, since the gradient turns the color transparent at the bottom. To correct that, click on the object and you will notice that a blue node appears at the bottom, while that node is selected and blue, click on either the darkest or the lightest color you want to add to your gradient, and the new color will substitute the portion that used to be transparent, and the heart will show as a complete shape.
☼ You can add highlights if you want to. You can also embellish your heart in many different ways. Let me show you one that is pretty easy.

☼ Go to the text tool and choose the Font Rockwell bold. Make a letter O (lower case) and fill it with a darker shade than your original heart but in the same color.
☼ Duplicate the O and drag it to the edge of the heart, continue to duplicate the O and to position it around the edge of the heart, mimicking the shape of the heart, overlap the Os every now and then in the shape of a chain. To turn the Os around so that they can fit the contour of the heart, click to the select the letter and then click again to choose the rotate handles and grabbing one of the side handles, rotate the letter to where it ought to go in the most natural direction to fit the contour of the heart. Continue doing that until you have completed the shape of the heart all around.

☼ Now you can do one of two things, you can stroke with the mouse to select the whole shape and go to Object, Group, and put join everything together so that it will not fall apart as you move it. But you can also, click on the original heart to select it, and move it aside, leaving the chained heart hollow.

You can color it anyway you want to, you can fill it with a texture or pattern, add a drop shadow, just play with it!

Pathlights. . .Worthwhile exploring!

How to make a clip for your journaling pad in Inkscape and Gimp

This clip is easier to make than you might think and it comes in handy to embellish many journaling pads, tags or notes that you might want to use in your scrapbooking. Let's make one together!

(This tutorial assumes that you have Inkscape installed in your computer and that you have at least a basic understanding of the software.)
If  you're not, please check out our past free tutorial and make some of them to get familiar with the software and then return here and do this one.
►Fire up Inkscape.
►Click on the Rectangle tool and, choosing the color of your choice, draw a rectangle, choose for the stroke, a lighter hue of the same color. Click on the rectangle you just made. You will notice it has 2 square handles an a round one.
►Pressing the Ctrl key with one hand and using the mouse with the other, push the round handle inwardly until you get rounded corners on the rectangle.
►Make a small rounded rectangle and duplicate it. Drag the small rounded rectangle and place it on top of the longer rectangle. Center it. Now drag the duplicate of the smaller rectangle and place
it on top of it. Make a circle, center it inside the uppermost small rounded rectangle and select it. Then, holding the shift key down, select the rectangle as well as the circle, now go to Path, Difference, to cut out
the shape of the circle. Now, with your mouse, select all the shapes and go to Object, Group. Now you can move them without them falling apart on you.
►Choose the gradient tool and fill the whole shape with a gradient of your choice. Click on the gradient, you will see a square button and a round button, click on the round button, it will turn blue, blue button means that the otherwise transparent part of the gradient is selected and you can change its color, click on the palette at the bottom of the page to select a color you want for the lighter part of your gradient and let the gradient chosen fill your image.
►To Save your clip, go to File, Export Bitmap and save as a PNG.

This is the basic clip you will have:

If you would like to add a texture to your clip, you can use a JPEG image in Inkscape. To do it, proceed as follows:

►Go to File, Import to insert your pattern as a JPEG, select it and then go to Edit, Objects to
Pattern.
►The pattern will now be available in the Fill and Stroke dialog. You will notice that it is very small. Select the pattern and then go to Edit, Objects to Pattern.
►When you see your pattern show up in the pop-up menu of the Fill/Pattern fill, your pattern is available in the Fill and Stroke dialog and you can apply it to your clip.
►If you find that too complicated, you can save your clip as a PNG Bitmap, open Gimp and apply whatever pattern you like best by simply using the Bucket tool in Gimp. Save again and bring it back into Inkscape.
►Make a narrow oval in White with the Ellipse tool to add a shiny highlight to the second circle of the clip, fill with White, right click on the Stroke and choose Edit Stroke, to remove it. On the little dialog menu, move the lever of the Opacity and of the Blur to where you like it best for a "shine" on your clip.
Repeat with a smaller oval on the top perforated circle of your clip. For the bottom of the clip, make a narrow white rectangle and also move the lever of the opacity and of the blur to where you like it best.
Save as a PNG Bitmap and your're done!

As you see, it's quite different from the plain, basic one. Try it with your own texture and enjoy using it on your next scrap!


Real Hope. . .

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. . .