Pattern Tutorial for Inkscape

For some time now I wanted to create a tutorial on creating a Seamless Repeating Vector Patterns, like the one shown in this excellent video by SewHeidi, but adapted for Inkscape. I kept putting it off though, but recently Zazzle announced that they have added fabric to the products they sell. Since fabric obviously lends itself to repeating patterns, I thought I should push myself to finally write out the steps for a tutorial. It of course is also great for many other print on demand products, as well as the fabric printing site Spoonflower.

I really like this method because it can help create a look that is more random and scattered than other methods I have tried. I also find it relatively easy and less complicated than other methods I've tried in the past. For me it also helped me visualize, wrap my mind around, what is going on when I use image creation/editing programs that use offset (it may seem obvious to some people...but my mind doesn't seem to work that way).



Even if you don't use Adobe Illustrator I still recommend watching this video to get the general idea of this method. Especially since, out of laziness, I am not including many screenshots of the process. There are only a few differences in doing it with Inkscape, so I hope that after watching the video that reading the steps of my tutorial that it won't be too hard to follow.

It could be really useful to check out her other videos about repeating patterns here. I really liked the one called "Create a Seamless Repeating Vector Pattern Using Adobe Illustrator (the long version)" but I found that version was not precise enough to get my pattern to repeat perfectly...there were parts of the pattern that were off. So my tutorial is sort of a mix between the video shown here and that one.

Okay, so to check out my Inkscape version of this method read on below...

Step One: In Inkscape create a Square with a Stroke around it with the Create Rectangles and Squares tool. This will be the boundary and guideline of your pattern. In this example, I've made mine 400 x 400 pixels.

Step Two: Create a new layer and fill with your pattern the way you want it to be, but with the right side and the top side clear of any objects, but the left and bottom sides can have the objects overlapping the edges.

The objects that overlap are what will create the repeating part of your pattern.

Step Three: Select all of the objects that are overlapping the left edge of the square boundary. (You can hold down the Shift key while clicking on each object to select more than one at a time.) Press  Ctrl+D to duplicate those objects.

While the duplicated objects are still selected, choose Object from the Menu, then Transform (or Press Shift+Ctrl+M).

With the Move tab selected, make sure the Relative Move is check marked, then enter in the size of your bounding square in the horizontal field. So in this example my bounding square was 400 pixels, so I enter 400 into the horizontal field.

This makes it pretty easy to know what to put in the field for moving the object. It's just whatever size that you made your square be.

Then click on the Apply button. This should move your duplicated objects to the opposite side of the square.

Step Four: Press Clear on the Transform / Move menu area. Select the objects that are on the bottom edge of your square. Press  Ctrl+D to duplicate those objects.

Enter in the size of your bounding square in the vertical field. So in this example my bounding square was 400 pixels, so I enter 400 into the vertical field. Then click on the Apply button.

Step Five: Fill in or adjust the objects in the center of the square, that do not overlap the edges, as desired.

*If you move any of the objects that overlap the edges you will need to re-do their corresponding object on the opposite side so that they will match up properly.

Step Six: To save/export your pattern select your bounding square, then in the Layers dialog box click on the Eye icon next to the layer that your square is on. So you can still see your pattern, but not the square (but you should still see a dashed line around the square, showing that it is still selected).

Then click on File, then Export Bitmap. Then  make sure that the Selection button is selected (this is important), choose where you want your file to be saved and name your file, then click on Export.

Using the Selection button makes so that only the area in the selected area is saved, but since you hid the layer the square is on it won't show up in your saved pattern file.


You can now use the resulting image as a pattern in your program of choice.

To use it in GIMP you can check out this info from the GIMP website.

Some additional notes:

If you wanted to put your shapes on the right and top edges, instead of the bottom and left, when using the Move tool you would just need to enter in a minus sign in front of the number instead. So, using our previous example, you would put -400 instead of 400.


I hope that helps out. If it is too confusing or you have other input, please let me know, and I will try to clarify and update the tutorial.

Changing the Background Color of Zazzle Product Images

There are some interesting and helpful tricks for Zazzle product images that maybe only a few know about. You can change the size and the background color on most (but not all) Zazzle products on Zazzle itself. All without using and image editing program.

Sometimes Zazzle designers want to use product images with their designs on it and use them for marketing purposes (and affiliates might want to too). They might want to take a picture of a mug with their design on and place it on the blog header they are creating or create a collage image of several products with their design on it. Those are just a few examples.

So they copy and paste the image into their image editing program. Or save it to their hard drive and open it with their image editing program. And then they start to remove/erase that white background with whatever method they use (eraser, color select, etc).

But there is a much quicker way. And it all involves the url address for the product image. In fact, the mug shown in the image here, I made the background transparent by changing some info in the url address for that image. Crazy, huh?

Getting the Product Image

If you are on a search results page for the image you want to use or in your store area, just right click on it and choose, "Copy Image Url" from the dialogue box that pops up.

However, if you are on the product page itself and try to right click on the image and right click on it...well you are going to get just a teeny tiny clear graphic. This is to try to protect the image from being stolen. So you need to go to where on the product page that it says, "Share" (it's under the "Add to Cart" button as of this writing) and click on that. Then click on "Link to This." There you will see an image of the product. Right click on that image and choose "Copy Image Url" or "Copy Image Location" (depending on what your browser says).

Now...Open a new tab in your browser and paste the url address in there. (This is where the "magic" begins.)

You will probably see something like this.

http://rlv.zcache.com/crazy_retro_cat_coffee_mug-rd884847c4b9f4a5d8fe14a1705c0c604_x7jgr_8byvr_325.jpg

Sometimes you might see a bunch of other things written after the .jpg part. Just delete those if you do see them.

Changing the Size of the Product Image

See that number right before the .jpg? That refers to the size of the image in pixels. Just change that to the size you want. I usually like 500 (if you choose 700 or larger it will add product info to the bottom of the picture). Then hit enter on your keyboard. This should change the product image in your browser.

Changing the Background Color

The default background color behind Zazzle product images is white. Say you want to make it black for some reason. To do this add this ?bg=0x00000000 to the end of the url address.

So your url address will look something like this.

http://rlv.zcache.com/crazy_retro_cat_coffee_mug-rd884847c4b9f4a5d8fe14a1705c0c604_x7jgr_8byvr_500.jpg?bg=0x00000000

Now hit the Enter key on your keyboard and see what happens.

What if you want another color? After that little "x" there are eight numbers. The last six numbers represent the color you want. These are Hex Code Colors. These six numbers represent colors and are used in many applications such as html code for websites (your image editing program might use them too).

Find a hex color you want to change the background to and replace those last six numbers with it. In this example I will use a purple hex code "800080"

http://rlv.zcache.com/crazy_retro_cat_coffee_mug-rd884847c4b9f4a5d8fe14a1705c0c604_x7jgr_8byvr_500.jpg?bg=0x00800080

When I hit the Enter key on my keyboard I see the background has turned purple.

Making the Background Color Transparent or Semi-Transparent

Cool. But what if you want the background of the product image to be transparent? We can do this too. (Note: this doesn't work on all product images. The ones I know of are t-shirts and those round "button" keychains, but there might be more.)

Okay, .jpg images can't be transparent, but .png images can. So we are just going to tell Zazzle to go to a .png image instead. Just delete the .jpg part of the url and write .png instead and hit Enter.

So your url address will look something like this.

http://rlv.zcache.com/crazy_retro_cat_coffee_mug-rd884847c4b9f4a5d8fe14a1705c0c604_x7jgr_8byvr_500.png?bg=0x00000000

Now remember that there are eight numbers after that "x" and the last six represents the color? Well the first two numbers represent transparency, this is the Alpha Hex Value (or something like that). Having the first two numbers be zeros makes the image transparent.

If you wanted the background to be solid then you would change the first characters from zeros to two letter f's. So it would be like this "?bg=0xff000000".

If you are interested in making the background semi-transparent check out this chart to find out what digits to use. http://wizti.com/blog/convert-opacity-to-hex-value

What to Do Now?

Now that you have the image the size that you want and the background color and/or transparency you want you can right click on the image and save it to your computer. Or in some cases you might want to just copy the url address and paste that into what you are using (for example, an online image editor that lets you open an image from a url address such as Pixlr Editor).

Changing the url address to show a .png version of the image and using this little bit of "code" "?bg=0x00000000" in the url address makes so you can get a transparent background on your Zazzle image must faster and cleaner than you would if you did it with an image editing program.

In the past I've been able to copy and paste the image into the application I've wanted to use it in, but that doesn't seem to be working anymore...I just get a black background now.

Zazzle's Gift Wrap Paper Tutorial

Recently Zazzle.com released a new product for designers to put their designs on. Wrapping Paper! It's really cool. But kind of pricey. Some designers I know have questioned whether anyone would spend that much on wrapping paper.

Well, I think, that if it is unique enough, something that a customer is unlikely to get anywhere else, that they might. And if that wrapping paper can be customized to have the message of their choice on it (such as "Happy Birthday, (Name they choose)" or even a photo of their choice (such as a baby picture of the person celebrating a birthday)...well it doesn't get any more unique than that and some people will be willing to pay for something that personalized.

Shown here is a cool, customizable, text based product that a Zazzle user called "logotees" designed. If you search Zazzle for things such as "custom" or "personalized"  wrapping paper you will find even more examples.

With most of the Zazzle products there is one way you can tile images. You do this by clicking on the icon that looks like a Gear and choose, "Tile this image."

But by default the Zazzle wrapping paper has an additional tile option. There is a place in the tools area, when making wrapping paper, that says "Design Area: Tile." When you use the option then everything you put into that area becomes part of a "tile" that is repeated. (It helps to click on the "Show Art View" icon, that looks like a water drop, in order to see this better.)
The advantage to using the "Design Area: Tile" on the wrapping paper (instead of the Gear Icon "tile") is that everything you put in the the "Design Area: Tile" also tiles...including text that the customer can customize.

If you don't want to use the "Design Area: Tile" option you need to click on where it says that and choose "Design Area: Horizontal" instead.

For the best results when using the "Design Area: Tile" option use a square image. Using an image that you have made to tile seamlessly will work best too. (Use a search engine, such as Google, to look for tutorials on how to make seamless tiles for your image editing program of choice.)

To show you the possibilities of what can be done with the wrapping paper I am going to try to explain how I made this one, shown here. (Click on the image to open it up in Zazzle and see how customers can customize it with their own words and picture.)

Sorry that I do not have pics of the steps. I do have a picture at the end of the tutorial with a diagram of many of the Zazzle options used in the tutorial though.

First, I made an image with a "frame" by cutting the center out and making the center transparent. It has to be a square image to work (since that is the work space size of the "Design Area: Tile").

I added the image to the product, but it made the image too small (leaving white space all around it), so I clicked on the "resize to fit available space" button. I think this needs to be done in most cases, especially if you are using a seamless tile.

Then I added the picture of the baby, and rearranged the order of the images to put it underneath the frame (do this by clicking on the image in the "list" of images and text area, beneath the tools, and "dragging and dropping" the image so it is in the order you want it).

Then I clicked on the Gear Icon and chose the "make this a template object" option to make so the image of the baby can easily be replaced by the customer to an image of their own.

Then I added the text and positioned it and made the text template objects too.

You could leave it at that. But in this case I did a few more things. I thought it looked a little boring so I selected the text and rotated it 30 degrees (to do this hold down the ctrl key and click on the "rotate" button and enter in the degree you want to rotate it to). Then I added another image that was made specifically to tile well to make the bows that repeat.

Below is a picture to help you identify some of the buttons/icons mentioned in this tutorial.

How to Move Your Zazzle Products Into a New Category

For many reasons you may need or want to create a new category in your Zazzle store and move products into it. So here's a step by step guide explaining how to do just that.

(You can click on on any of the images to make them larger for easier viewing.)

1. Go into your Account at Zazzle and click on the Products tab. Scroll down and click on the "All Categories" link in the navigation menu on the left side of the screen. This will open a new page.

2. One this new page click on the "Add new category" link towards the top of the screen.

3. Fill in the Category Name and Description. Then click on Change to change the Thumbnail image for the category

4. Select the image you want for your thumbnail and click on the orange OK button.
You'll be taken back to the previous window (as seen in Step 3). Click on the orange Done button.

5. Click on the Products tab again. Check mark the products you want to move to the new category you created.

6. Click on "Actions" and then on "Set store category."

7. Select the store category you want to move the products to. Then click the orange Done button.


You probably will not see any immediate changes. But don't worry. It can take up to 24 hours (and on rare occasions even longer) for the changes to take effect. Just wait until the next day to see if the products have been moved.

How to Add a Tracking Code to your Zazzle Referral Link

Once you have created an affiliate link with your referral ID you can add a tracking code to it too. The tracking code will make it so if something you refer sells you can know where that sale came from.

You can make the tracking code be anything that you want, so you have your own unique identifier. For example, if you want to see if posting referrals on facebook works for you (what works well for one person may not for another), then you could just use the letters "fb" to mean facebook.

All you need to do is add &tc= to the url with your affilate ID plus whatever you want your tracking code to be after that equal sign. Like so:

http://www.zazzle.com/cupcake_love_keychain-146881358322495734?rf=238018347362090796&tc=fb

And as mentioned I could make the tracking code be anything. So here's another example:

http://www.zazzle.com/cupcake_love_keychain-146881358322495734?rf=238018347362090796&tc=twitterlove

If you make up several tracking ID's you might want to write them down so you can remember them all, what they mean (if you use abbreviations such as "fb" for facebook or if you make up a special "code" that only you would know what it means).

So if something you referred does sell, where do you find out that info? Well go into your account and click on the Referral History link. Underneath the Name of the product that sold and the numbers underneath that it will say "TC:" and then the code you made up. If the referral came from a link that did not have a tracking code then nothing will be underneath the numbers. (Thanks to A_Plus_Products for the screenshot.)

How to Manually Create Zazzle Referral Links

A Zazzle referral link is basically a url address for almost any Zazzle page plus a question mark, then the letters "rf" then an equal sign and then your referral ID added to that url.

So basically you can go to any Zazzle page and copy the url from your address bar then paste it somewhere.



Like so:

http://www.zazzle.com/cupcake_love_keychain-146881358322495734

And then in your Zazzle account area click on the "Associates" tab. Or you can just click on this link http://www.zazzle.com/my/associate/associate to go to the same place.

In the picture below (from the Associates page) you will see what is my Zazzle associate ID to be used in this example. It actually explains there how to create your referral ID. Basically take the url address you copied earlier then write ?rf= and then your affiliate ID after (you can also use the "&" sign instead of a "?"). Or I, being lazy, will just copy and paste the blue part shown in the example that Zazzle gives and paste that after the url. so it looks like:

http://www.zazzle.com/cupcake_love_keychain-146881358322495734?rf=238018347362090796

One of the advantages to creating a referral link manually like this is you can then refer other Zazzle pages than just a product page. You could create a referral link for the Zazzle home page.
http://www.zazzle.com/?rf=238018347362090796

Or a link to a search for certain keywords. Just do a search on Zazzle. Copy and paste what is in the url address bar, then put in the ?rf= and your ID. So it looks something like this.
http://www.zazzle.com/cute+cupcakes+gifts?rf=238018347362090796

How to Create a Basic Affilate Link on Zazzle

There is more than one way to create an affiliate link on Zazzle. This covers one of the basic ways of doing so. Make sure you are logged into Zazzle and that you are signed up for the affiliate program (sorry that I can't explain how to do this, as I signed up a long time ago).

1. Go the the page of the product you want to refer. Look underneath the product photo. There you will see several buttons. Click on the "Link" button.

2. Then select the text from the box that says "Option 1: Link for Email or IM" and copy it (you can do so by pressing CTRL+C on your keyboard or right click the selected text with your mouse and choose Copy).

You can then paste this link where you want it, such as on facebook, Twitter, an email, etc. (To paste either press CTRL+V or right click with your mouse and choose Paste).



By the way...the url that you paste should look something like this. http://www.zazzle.com/cupcake_love_keychain-146881358322495734?rf=01230000000

The first numbers relate to the product you are referring. The ?rf= part tells Zazzle that someone is referring a product and the last numbers are your referral number. If you don't see the ?rf= followed by a string of numbers then you will not get a referral.

How to Edit Product Tags @ Zazzle

(You can click on any of the images below to make them larger.)

Step One: Go to the page of the product you want to edit the tags for. Look underneath the image of the product for the link that says Edit and click on that. (See the red arrow in the image to the right to see where it says Edit.)

Step Two: Click on the menu area that say "Tags."
Step Three: Enter in any new tags you want to add in the box area and click on "Add Tag(s)." The words you see in boxes are the tags that you have. If you want to remove any of them click on the "x" to the right of the word you want to remove.

(The words that are in blue boxes are what Zazzle calls "Power Tags" but I don't want to confuse you with those right now. So I won't explain them any further for now.)

 Step Four: Check mark the "I have the right to publish and sell this product..." area and then click on "Ok."

You are then done editing your tags. You can view your tags at the bottom of the product page (the page where customers would go to buy the product).

Note: You can also get to the "Edit" page by clicking on the "Products" tab and then clicking on the "Actions" link and then on "Edit." From there you will just follow Steps 2 through 4 again.