Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Scallops Anyone?

First, I must ask your forgiveness in getting off topic for a week. I know I planned to cover embellishment techniques for acrylic albums this week, but I've had too much going on personally in the last week to get that post together in time. Next week, I hope to be able to get back to the topic of acrylic.

But, that doesn't mean I don't have a cool hump day technique for you today!

Recently, I've found myself making scallops, in several different ways. First, I used the Cricut Design Studio to combine a large circle with small circles to create the large brown scalloped circle in the following layout:


Also, in the layout above, I used a 3-inch circle punch to to create the black scalloped circle. In both these cases, my scallops ended up a bit....wonky. When using the Cricut Design Studio, I took a guess at the diameter of my small circles that would create my scallop. I didn't know if the diameter I chose would work until I got all the way around the large circle. By the time I got that far, I no longer cared if my scallops looked a little wonky!

I chose to use a 3-inch punch for the black circles in the layout above, simply because I HAD a 3-inch punch. But as you can see, my black circles don't touch each other, creating a not-quite-scalloped look.

I couldn't help but wonder if there was a better way, so I took my engineering skills and applied them to scrapbooking! Using a little bit of trigonometry I was able to come up with a method to relate the diameter of the inner circle, the diameter of the scallop, and the number of scallops for scalloped circles like that shown below. All of this information is summarized for circles up to 12 inches in diameter in this table: Scalloped Circle Table .Please tell me if you find this information useful. I have a how-to-scallop-a-rectangle version that is more complicated so I only want to post it if you find this kind of information useful.

Happy humpday....I now return you to your regularly scheduled acrylic technique.....

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are outstanding Amanda, awesome tecnhnique and I have printed the PDf for for future reference. I am not mathematically inclined and I know I will use this. Thank You so much.

Marilyn said...

That is so awesome! Once I get a new blade for my silhouette, I will do this for sure!!

Scrappycath said...

Absolutley helpful stuff! Relates to my mathematical side! I don't have the cricut - but this applies to any way. Circles and scallops are some of the toughest things to get to look nice. Or at least not "wonky" LOL

Thanks!!

Kristin said...

Wow! I have saved it and will use it a lot. I tried my hand at ovals and gave up!! I, personally, would love the rectangle pdf. And, I have a great dh who supports this *habit* of mine, but really doesn't want to have to be dragged into it too far... said a big kudos to you for all the math!

R. Dorrian6 said...

Love your blog! And love your math. It's been so long since I used trig. I faguely remember sin & cos. Thank you for figuring it all out for us. Now I don't have to.
:-)