Hi I am a newbie and been trying to learn inkscape.

I am wanting to design my own simple packaging labels for some homemade cosmetic christmas presents ( round lipbalms, oblong lip balms and some bottle labes ) but unfortunatley its taking me ages as I have to keep looking up /googling how to do certain things currently I am really struggling with how to do the following: which for those who know inkscape Im sure is a piece of cake.

a) Polkadot background ( to fill a shape ) when I say polkadot I mean like evenly spaced circle not a messy look like the Pattern Fill on my inkscape which looks messy .

Heres an example of what Im after ( not these colours lol black and white is fine ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polka_dot

b) Snowflakes ( but I guess it woudl be same for any other pattern ( that I wanted to stay within a circle ( I dont mean to completley fill the circle with snowflakes vectors or any other shapes for that matter. I am just looking to have a few snowflakes kind of falling on one side of my label . But without knowing how to do this my snowflakes are hanging over the edge of the label .

Any tips re designing my own lables would be welcomed too

Thanks in advance for your help

Tamt

I was just looking into using patterns with Inkscape the other day. I'm not sure what about the "Pattern Fill" is looking "messy" to you, but I suspect this is what you'll want to use. Here are few tutorials that may point you toward a solution for the messiness your are trying to avoid: http://tucsonlabs.com/52/patterns-with-inkscape/, http://ffaat.pointclark.net/blog/archiv ... scape.html, http://verysimpledesigns.com/vectors/in ... terns.html

Welcome to InskcapeForum!

I also wanted to add a link to the info in the manual, which may be more of a basic approach, for creating custom patterns http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL ... s-Patterns. That would be for the polka dot pattern. Tiled Clones would probably be the best way, but I wouldn't recommend tackling that feature as a new user.

As for the snowflakes, I don't recall seeing any tutorials (although it would be fun to make one....). But you could probably do something pretty cool with the Star tool. Or if you have a lot of patience, you could possibly get some rounded snowflakes with the Spirograph extension. Too bad we don't have a snowflake making extension. I might have to make a snowflake tutorial though....we'll see

I wasn't going to get online again until after Christmas.
Anyway, I stopped by the forum, just for a minute to ask a question of my own, and saw this post.
So,

Hi Tamt,
Major Edit: I just reread your original post in this topic, and am terribly embarrassed to see how completely I misunderstood your problem with the snowflakes. (In my quick read through I overlooked the most important parts of your message, and I'm so sorry for that.) What you needed to do, to prevent your snowflakes from extending beyond the outer edges of your labels was to clip them.
To clip your snowflakes to fit the label
Duplicate the object that defines the outer edges of your label and pull the duplicate off to one side, then select and group all the elements of your label, including the snowflakes. Raise your Duplicate object to the top, and move it over the grouped label objects, positioned so that it covers everything you want to show up in your finished labels. Drag a selection around everything, and choose Object > clip >set. That will make it look like your snowflakes are cropped to fit the label, but it can be totally undone by releasing the clip.
Check out this page to learn more about it. http://inkscapetutorials.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/inkscape-faq-how-do-i-crop-in-inkscape/

Good luck, Merry Christmas, and Welcome to the Forum.

HI Inkspots
Thankyou for taking the time to post espec consideirng the busy time of the year it was.. I am sooo sorry I did not see this post till today, I am still finding my way around the forum and by chance stumbled on your post ..
YESSSSS that tutorials was EXACTLY what I was struggling to ask for - thank you I have read it & look forward to playing with that technique.
Many Thanks Again TT