Bite Into This!
 March 5th, 2010 by Sandy McCauley


Carol B contacted me late yesterday asking how she could create a bite mark in a cookie or an apple. Now the basic way would be to use the Ginsu knife tool and just hold down the left mouse button and draw the bite mark through the image and separate:

The problem is that I’m a lousy artist, thus my bite just doesn’t “work for me!” lol
So, I remembered the apple file that comes with KNK Studio and figured that it would be a good starting point because it has a bite taken from it. So, have a look at this video and you’ll see how I transferred that exact same bite to a circle to create the cookie:
Bite Mark Video
Thanks, Carol, for yet another great video idea!


Cropping Vector Images
 February 13th, 2010 by Sandy McCauley

Say thank you to Rayleen for today’s post! She sent me a similar file to the one above (on the left) and needed to crop a certain section so as to fit an existing size project.   I recreated my own version of the file and I think this could easily be something that you might encounter when trying to modify existing files.  The situation is this… you have a rectangular image that you would like to use but it must be converted to a square image to work in your application.  You can’t just resize it because it will distort the image and change the width of the outer portions of the frame:

So, you would like to crop it in a similar way that you do with photos. Basically, you would like to just cut out a portion of the image to use. This is amazing simple to do by just using any shape tool, arranging the shape over the part of the image you wish to crop, and then applying the XOR weld.

In this situation, you want to go one step further, which is to create a perfect square crop and maximize as much of the existing image as possible. So, watch the video and you’ll see how it’s done:

Cropping Vector Images

and here’s a link to the file I used in case you want to try it out:

Valentine Mesh

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!


Solving a Design Problem with Stenciling
 February 5th, 2010 by Sandy McCauley

Before I address the image above, two things I want to share with you:

(1) Accugraphic’s sites are currently down, thus the links to the cutters in my store here are not currently working. If all goes well, things will be back up and running next week. In the meantime, you can order by calling their 800-268-3672 number Monday-Friday from 8:30 am – 4:00 pm EST.

(2) My new reader subscription link is ready for those of you who like to be notified about new blog posts. Click on Subscribe above. Note that RSS is not yet supported by Google Chrome, so please use either Internet Explorer or Firefox to access the subscription page.

Okay, now let’s talk about the cute image above! Colleen S sent this file to me because she wasn’t sure how to get the dogs’ paws to show up in the image. Obviously just welding the paws to the sign wouldn’t provide the look she wanted, which was to clearly see the dog’s paws and give the impression that they were on top of the sign. Now, with most designs like this, the dog would be a different color and you could simply layer the paws on top. However, in this case even if you were to make the dog’s paws and the sign different colors, you would end up with parts of the sign appearing through the paws because the dog is designed as an outline image with hollow parts:

So, I thought about it for a while and then suddenly remembered the stenciling trick where you carve one image out from another and the effect is a kind of merging of the two images. While it’s not EXACTLY the same as seeing the dogs’ paws on top of the sign, the resulting look is kind of cool and, most importantly, Colleen was pleased with outcome. : )

To see the process, watch this video:

Stenciling An Image


Flip and Weld
 January 30th, 2010 by Sandy McCauley



Thanks to Terina who sent in her family business logo above for a slight editing change. The bottom of the “O” was open and she wanted to know the easiest way to close that part of the letter to match the top:



Now, I could have told Terina to just bring up the nodes, split a few of them, drag them over to the other side, weld the nodes to those on the other side, and then smooth out the curves. But whenever I see symmetry, I always think of a technique I call the “Flip and Weld” which can be used to easily reproduce the opposite side of any symmetrical object, such as this “O”.

It basically involves using the Ginsu Knife tool to break the image into two parts and discarding one of the parts. In this case it would be the lower half of the “O”. Then using the Flip function, a mirror image is created and overlapped on top of the original. The feature I love about the Flip function, versus the Mirror function, is that you have the option of retaining the original. Then by aligning the new side to just barely overlap the original, the two can then be welded and you obtain, a perfect symmetrical image:


And yes, I have a video for this process! Click on this link:
Flip and Weld

Keep this method in mind for both your manual and auto-traced images in which the original image is symmetrical. You will almost always notice slight differences from one side to the other and this can distort the overall appearance of the image. If an image is symmetrical both horizontally and vertically, then you can use the Ginsu Knife twice and end up with a quarter of the image to reproduce and Flip and Weld…. first one direction (say, horizontally), and then Flip and Weld it the other (thus, vertically) and obtain the perfect symmetrical image you wanted.

If you are designing a symmetrical image from scratch, using either basic shapes, hand drawing, or modifying an existing image, remember this method, as well.

Finally, this method can also be used in Rhinestone designing, when an outline (or even a fill) doesn’t end up with a symmetrical placement of the circles. In this case, only the Flip step is used. Here’s a video showing this:

Symmetrical Outlining with Circles

If you come up with a great application for the Flip and Weld, be sure to send it to me!


A Note to Subscribers…
 January 25th, 2010 by Sandy McCauley

Chad has been unable to get this site’s FeedBurner account to cease sending those regular emails saying “this site has been changed.” Thus we will be switching to RSS as a subscription service. Please sign up with the RSS once you see it appear on this home page and unsubscribe from the other service IF you continue to receive emails. It’s kind of ridiculous to assume that you’ll get more emails once we delete my FeedBurner account, but I’ve seen stranger things happen! lol

Again, I’m sorry for the inconvenience! But I hope to make it up to you in new videos, handy tips, and other useful information.


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