Monday 2 April 2012

The Magic of ecal (part 2)

 by Pete Hughes


Sorry, Couldn't help myself! I am enjoying using the ecal software so much that I felt I had to share some more. as I mentioned last time, with ecal, you can use any true type fonts, this includes Dingbat fonts of which there are literally hundreds free to download.

Dingbat fonts can be simple shapes, floral borders, butterflies, famous logo's, seasonal pictures in fact the list is pretty endless. The best way to find what is about is to pop the phrase free fonts into your computers search engine and see where it leads you. It is very easy to download free fonts and of course, they're FREE!!! 

A really cute dingbat font is creatures which comprises of a number of little monsters, perfect for perking up kid's birthday cards or invites. I used one such creature to create the card below and here is how i did it (If you look back at the last blog post it will give you a more in depth explanation of how to use ecal)


1. Firstly, I selected my 'creature' and brought it to the size that I needed. Next, I selected the object menu at the top left of the ecal screen and scrolled down to break apart which allows me to select individual areas of the artwork so that I can drag them to separate areas of my mat prior to cutting. You can see that I have separated the image into outline (top left) block colour (top right) and below that, the teeth, tongue and eye balls.
To create the little monster phrase I chose the fonts Cinnamon Cake for the word 'little' and Samdan for the word 'monster'. I welded the letters together but before welding the words together I copied and pasted the word monster so that I could cut it in a different colour (green). after welding the two words together I rotated them so that they would fit onto the blue paper.
2. Once everything was where I wanted it on screen it was time to lay my chosen papers on the cutting mat. One of the great things about working on ecal is that the computer screen represents the cutting mat in your eclips so you know exactly where everything is going to be when cut which takes away the guess work when your laying down your papers.
3. simply press the cut button and let the eclips do the work. remove all the waste paper and you are ready to assemble your card.

4. Mount the outline onto the patterned block colour cut-out.
5. Add the cut-out detail i.e. teeth, tongue, eyeballs.
6. Use distress inks to tint the bottom of the word and a sanding block to distress the top before attaching to the 'Little Monsters' phrase in a slight offset to create a shadow effect.
7. Assemble the parts of the card.
8. Mount the check pattern onto the base card and attach the 'Monster' using 3D foam pads before adding the phrase.

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