I really need help with making a collage mat

[Nanette]

Hi everyone! I'm pulling my hair out here trying to design a collage picture mat that I can picture in my mind but cannot for the life of me figure out how to do.

I want the words... The Eckley Family cut out, two layers, the top one being a shadow layer so that it all looks double matted... ok I got that part! Here's the part I cannot figure out how to do... I want to fill in the rest of the 12 X 12 paper with a shape, I would prefer circles or squares. Is there some way to do this and get them evenly spaced like when you do an auto fill and only cut one shape.

I have tried to make a square, then copy and use paste using auto fill, but it doesn't show the shapes. I thought I could just delete the ones I didn't want. HELP! I have just over a week to get this done. Even any other suggestions on ways to do this would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Nanette

[talanhart]

Something like this?

[Nanette]

Yes, but without the circles behind the words. I cannot for the life of me get them even!

[DogCarbon]

Are you trying to do this in Inkscape or scal?

In ink, you can get things aligned evenly by highlighting the objects, then using Object/Align and Distribute/
Also, HeatherM has good tut on this here:
http://imagesbyheatherm.wordpress.com/t ... pe/page/2/


And in reading Heather's post at the very bottom it states that inkscape also has an align and distibute for NODES! I never saw this before! I would just manually put in the x and y cordinates when I wanted the nodes to be exact.... how silly of me

[Nanette]

I have been trying in scal2. I can use Paint Shop Pro in my sleep but when it comes to inkscape I'm usless.

[pennsylvaniakate]

Select the object you want to duplicate (circle, square, etc.), click on the Object tab in the top left-hand corner of SCAL, click Duplicate, type the number of rows and columns you want, and type in the spacing you want. The default spacing is 1.0, and that makes the duplicated objects just touch. To weld them, I typed 0.95 in the spacing boxes, clicked OK, selected all of my objects, and clicked weld.

[Nanette]

Tks everyone, I think I'm getting it... will post results when I finish it!

[Nanette]

Black and white photos will go in all the diamonds and behind the word family

[talanhart]

I wasn't even close. Looks great and a great idea!

[Nanette]

Todd, you were closer than I was originally and your layout gave me the clues to know how to do it.

Thanks! You really were helpful!