Help for Newbie

[lwilli]

My wife has asked me to make tissue boxes for her friends at work. It will basically be a shell consisting of four sides and a top which can be dropped over the tissue box. She also asked me to personalize each box by using my scroll saw to cut their names in the front of the box. The problem is I'm having difficulty in finding a program or means to creating a pattern for their names. I'm sure this question has been asked many times, but if it wouldn't be too much trouble could someone please point me in the right direction. I truly enjoy this forum and all the contributions that everyone shares.

Louis

[Russ C]

I use Inkscape to create almost all of my patterns and it is free. If you have never used a vector graphic drawing program in might take some practice. 

Inkscape Draw Freely

[lwilli]

Thanks Russ for such a quick response! I will definitely check out this program. I will let you know how it works out for me.

Louis

[Bill P]

Russ has a great suggestion, but if you're looking for quick and easy, and all you're doing is their names, type their name in Word using "stencil" font.  After that, you can outline the letter and change the inner color to white.  Makes for fast lettering.

Bill, who's going to try to be serious from this point on....not.  

P.S. You don't have to use "stencil" but it prevents "floaters" on the lettering.  If you do a two-layer project you can use any font.  I do that and it gives it a look that a lot of people really like.  Good luck!

[lwilli]

Thanks Bill, that to is a very good idea. You guys are such a wealth of information.

Louis

[BilltheDiver]

Another easy approach would be to use Steve's Keychain Pattern Maker (available on his main webpage) and just resize it to the appropriate size for your project.

[lwilli]

Thanks BilltheDiver! With all the input I'm sure my project will surely be a hit.

Louis

[GrayBeard]

If you have several boxes to do try all three methods!

Variety!!!

~~~GB~~~

[cameronj]

Thanks Bill, from me too.  I never knew of trying the stencil font as such for project wording.  I just checked it out, and it looks great.  Just hope I think of it next time I am designing something that needs words on it.
Jim

[Chachi]

I use Steve Goods Pattern maker for names you can find it here http://scrollsawworkshop.blogspot.com
Unless you would like a different way of doing the names I find this works well for me when I am doing names.

[lwilli]

I wish to extend my thanks to everyone who responded to my question. I'm amazed by everyone's generosity. I hope that someday I too will have enough experience in this art to help someone else with their questions.

Louis

[mrsn]

Something I like to do is play with the letter spacing to get letters to "stick" together. In many of the word processing programs you can adjust the spacing, look for a font or character menu. This will sometimes let you make neat looking words that will work well as an overlay. It doesn't usually work for a cut out in a project, too many "floaters".
Another thing that can work to get letters to "stick" together is to type each letter in a text box and move them around to make them look "cool". I use Open Office Drawing (a free program similar to publisher or power point) to do this most of the time, but it can be done in other programs as well.