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!

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.

First off, I appreciate all of my readers here. Thank you for your support throughout 2009. Sorry I haven’t had new info to post. It’s not from a lack of ideas… just a lack of time with the holidays.

Also, there’s an apparent glitch with the Feed Burner subscription and I know a lot of my subscribers are getting daily messages about a change at my site, but there’s no update. I will have Chad look into this when he returns from vacation. I’m not familiar with the ins and outs of these services and hopefully he’ll be able to troubleshoot and fix the problem. In the meantime, I appreciate your patience with this issue. I have disabled this plugin until it can be reviewed.

Have a VERY Happy New Year! And be sure to watch for new cutting tips and tutorials in 2010!

Pam Z!

Chris’s posted announcing Pam Z as the winner is under the Comments link below! A hearty congratulations to Pam and a HUGE thank you to everyone who participated! : )

VDBC is celebrating its first anniversary this month! Chris is offering all of my readers a chance to win a membership to her Quarterly Membership Club (either Oct-Dec or Jan-Mar) at www.visualdesignsbychris.com

Its easy to win- just enter a comment on this post TODAY, October 2, and you will be entered in a drawing for one membership. (Scroll to the end of this section and the link to comment is below the three photos. All comments must be approved, so I promise to check off regularly all day long and get them all approved before Chris does her drawing of the winner tomorrow!)

Chris’s Quarterly Membership Club includes 20 plus files offered in GSD KNK WPC AI SVG SCUT
All new original files created freshly during the quarter. Value is $10.00

Winner will be announced tomorrow, Saturday, October 3rd, at this blog. So be sure to post your comment TODAY and then tune in tomorrow to see who won!

For all of you readers who have expressed how much you enjoy this site… please thank Chris! She’s the one who pushed me to get started with this site and answered a jillion questions that I had about the proces. Chris, congratulations on your first year! I wish you continued success and thank you for getting me started blogging! You’re the BEST!!! : )

Thank you SO much to Chris Durnan for nominating me for her “I Love Your Blog Award.” Chris’s blog has been an inspiration to so many people involved in the cutter world and I personally want to thank her also for answering a miscellany of emails from me about how to set up various things in my blog. She’s the Blogging Queen, if there ever was one!

To continue this chain of nominations, I pick the following 7, in alphabetical order. :

Brenda
Diana
Jenn
Karen
Pam
Polsia
Rosemary

Here are the rules for playing:
1. The winner can put the logo on their blog
2. Link the person you received your award from
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4. Put links of those blogs on yours
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the people you have nominated