Free, resizable drawings
I have all the drawing ability of a puppy, so I need an easy way to acquire scalable images for the signs I like to make. Scalable is important, because using .jpg images is much more work. What is needed is a good, free source of vector art. Well, you've probably got some already on your PC, or can get it easily from the internet. My method is is to use clipart, like what comes with Microsoft Office, or is available from Office Online.
Clipart comes in many forms, but what is easiest to use is clipart that is of type .wmf or .emf. This is a vector format, and can be scaled to whatever size you wish with no loss of quality. Following is the process I use to bring an image into VCarvePro.
Let's say I want a Xmas decoration, like a branch with ornaments. I can't find one in my existing collection, so I go to the Office site and type Christmas Ornament into the search box, as shown here. The 12th image down is what I need, and hovering my mouse above the image shows it is a .wmf filetype, so I click the box to select it, and then click the download link on the left menu. This will get it into your clipart collection if you have Office. If not, then you will have to use a different source for clipart.
I now open up a new Word document and import the clipart I just downloaded into my document. Now for the trick. wmf files are not directly importable by Vectric products, so I save the Word document as a .pdf file (you can save directly from Word 2007,) or download a free pdf converter that acts like a printer. I use CutePDF.
Opening up VCarvePro, I start a new project and import the pdf I just created. I can now size it as I wish, remove the color outlines, and carve it out.
Here is the clipart file I downloaded
Here is the .pdf file I made from it
