Cool Styles for Animated Select Menu

Select menu which sometimes goes by the name of dropdown is one of those things that has got very little attention for customization. Most codes include some form of javascript to make them stylish. The css codes too come with long list of tags.

Unfortunately, that can slow down the site. There are actually cooler ways to change the select bar using very less css. Try the following codes.

We are using here the official tag select. Certain web templates come with another tag called custom select. Under such circumstances, all you need to do is simply copy the styles from below and paste under that tag.

Cool Blue

select {

    font-size: large;

    background-color: #13437b;

    color: white;

    padding: 8px;

    border-radius: 7px;

    box-shadow: inset 0 0 9px #ffffff;

    outline: none;

    border: 4px groove #8bddff;

    -webkit-transition: all 1s;

    transition: all 1s;

    transition-property: all;

    transition-duration: 1s;

    transition-timing-function: ease;

    transition-delay: 0s;}

select:hover {

    background-color: #00c;

    box-shadow: inset 0 0 4px 5px #ffffff, 0 0 4px 3px #2196f3ad;

    border: 4px solid #b2ffe2;

    text-shadow: 0 0 1px black;

}

Fresh Teal

select {
    background-color: #5aeceb;
    color: #2a9096;
    padding: 5px;
    font-size: 23px;
    background-image: url(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkwt22nG1GWoVoa2FC2l7u6cTG57OikcRRwzKYEwOM6zJbZ03_hs-9MEb5pa_p024AK3F2KnyR5IL4DZW1YgqMXchtdxcPGCZMqCS2tMsbgzGrX4volp_4ThHIIhLK7byX7WSK8uxkftAd/s1600/green+glitter.gif);
    outline: none;
    background-blend-mode: overlay;
    border-radius: 8px;
    box-shadow: 0px 0px 5px 4px #45dccc;
    border: 4px dashed #fff;
   text-shadow: 1px -1px #55f4f5;
   cursor: pointer;
}

select:hover {
    border: 4px dotted #fff;
}

option {background-color: #e2fff7;

}

Sunny Select

select {
background: #ffc107;
 background-image: url(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYOBuYOMn5ivNmXlMuI_O7MrKWzvf5iEhjY4rV0oX5l8NjyMIBeVq3-Cf76R0l-e4Yn0b6WQxIDIj0fMLDTUyY8QQTeHfE2lpq-7hYaXFkUpuysUqkMbeliqHv11Ctd0Q7PEQyVCcqKVkW/s1600/rain+effect+in+yellow.gif);
 outline: none;
 font-size: 20px;
 color: #ce0707; padding: 7px;
 box-shadow: inset 0 0 0 2px #ff6565; border-radius: 9px; cursor: pointer; }

option { background: #e2e283; }

Feminine

select {
    text-transform: uppercase;
    font-size: 25px;
    background:#c181e8;
    background: linear-gradient(#dc22d0, #c181e8, #a300cc);
    color: white;
    padding: 3px;
    outline: none;
    box-shadow: -1px 1px 5px 2px #c687eb;
    border: 2px solid white;
    border-left: 9px solid white;
    border-right: 9px solid white;
    cursor: pointer;
    text-shadow: 0 0 1px white;
-webkit-transition: box-shadow 2s;
    transition: box-shadow 2s;
transition-property: box-shadow;
    transition-duration: 2s;
    transition-timing-function: ease;
    transition-delay: 0s}

option {
    background-color: #d26d9c;
}
select:hover {
    box-shadow: -1px 1px 9px 6px #d5a1f3;
background:#d26d9c;
    background: linear-gradient(#c172cc, #f1b8fb, #d26d9c);
    text-shadow: 0 0 2px #000000cc;}

How to Use Pixlr to Make a Glossy Heart

Did you know Pixlr makes it easy to make a glossy heart? You don't need any drawing training for it. A little bit of brainstorming and looking for shortcuts create the result. It can take less than 5 minutes.

The best part is that you can use the shape for any other colorful hearts you want to make. Scroll down to get to tutorial.

Things to Keep in Mind:
You can use any red color.
You can shade your heart with darker shade of red instead of black we used in the tutorial.
When shaping the top portion of the half heart make sure you get it to look curvy.
The end result of the tutorial is this:

How to Use Pixlr to Make a Banner

Banners are favorites of online marketers. You can convey your most important message through them for attention grabbing and get immediate results. Needless to say they look awesome.

But you cannot just grab one from Google image. They are just highly protected. But what if you could make one? What if you didn't need any photoshop or inkscape for it?

Yes, it is possible to make one without downloading any software for it.

The right one happens to be Internet's hot favorite Pixlr. People often think you can only edit images through it. Most tutorials cater to that idea.

The truth is that Pixlr's tools can be used to make all sorts of graphics. The following is an example.

Here is the trick to making this banner. Try it out. Use any color of your choice. You can have any width and height.

How to Install New Fonts to Inkscape and Where to Get Them

You probably want to make a logo and you don't like the fonts Inkscape is showing you. Blame your operating system. Inkscape is showing you the list from that. That is actually a good thing. A software coming with its own fonts would be too heavy. You are spared from the space invasion. Now to use a font that you like, you have to put it inside your operating system's font folder. Inkscape then will make it visible for your use. How to do it? Check the steps. Once you install one, you will find it listed by other graphics editors also including Pixlr. In short, it will not stay limited to just Inkscape.

Where to Get Free Fonts

Fonts are very time consuming to make and thus, they are not always free. The artists are quite sensitive about who uses them. If you are looking for free fonts to use in a text or logo for some kind of business stay careful. Free does not equal to free for all. Do take a look at the kind of license they come with. It is really best to go for public domain fonts since they are not very restrictive. Still verify if the artist allows free for commercial use. Most sites will show the license type of each font. Reviewing it will help. You can also email the artist to be on the safe side. For public domain fonts, you can go for the following sites:

1001fonts
Font Meme
Font Squirrel

All of them allow preview of fonts by letting you type in a field whatever you want. Play around. See what you like. Finalize whatever you want. Otherwise, learning the steps, just choose something randomly. At this point, please do not keep your Inkscape open. Close it. If you are working on some graphics save them.

How to Install

Let's go to 1001 Fonts. From there, we pick Headlines. You can see it highlighted below.

From page 2, we choose Beyond Wonderland font. Click the green download button.

Try downloading it to your desktop. This makes the zipped file visible without forcing you to go through a list of folders. Click save.

After dowloading it, go to your desktop and you will see it standing there. Right click it and then choose Extract All.

After extraction, the following folder will show up. From this, click the folder titled Beyond Wonderland.

After opening this new folder, you will find a file that has A icon. Just copy it.

Now if your OS comes with search bar you can directly write into it fonts to get to font folder. Otherwise, go to Control Panel.

If you have Control Panel open, click it to get to Appearance and Personalization.

At the end of the Appearance and Personalization list you will find Font. Just click it.

When the window is open press CTRL and V together. The following result will be what you will get then.

You can then search for the font in this liberary by its name. Please remember it. You can also note it down. 

Next you can open your Inkscape. To see the font you have downloaded, all you have to do is click A icon which actually is the button for text.

Go to the list of fonts you will find above.

Type Beyond and your font title will appear. Just choose it it to start making your logo. You can, of course, browse the entire list to get to that font. That is just totally fine.

Now just carry out making your logo or any other text. From the list, go for your newly installed font. 

Make a Pitcher With Inkscape

Pitchers usually have curves. When we were kids drawing them on papers some of us probably had trouble with that. You may think that curves might make it difficult to create the Pitcher using software like Inkscape. But no, fortunately, that is not the case. Literally anyone can make one on Inkscape. Below is the guide on how to do it. What you will be making looks like this:

Note that you really don't need to have the same color I chose for the pitcher. You can go for anything you desire.

How to Make a Chain with Inkscape

Chain is one of the simplest things you can create using Inkscape. What is most amazing is that it can look exactly like a real one we are used to wearing. And once you know how to make this chain you will be able to create a whole lot of jewelry graphics such as bracelet, necklace and earrings. You will be also able to make beautiful frames. Here we will make a bracelet.

Step 1: Choose the rectangle icon. Draw one using width: 161.429, height: 81.429 and Rx: 14.240.

Step2: Duplicate the rectangle using Ctrl and D or by right clicking and then choosing duplicate.

Step 3: For this duplicate, choose a color of your choice.

Step 4: Shrink this duplicate and put it in the middle of the original rectangle.

Step 5: Select both the rectangles by dragging your mouse cursor over them.

Step6: Choose from top menu object to path and then difference. What you will get now is a hollow rectangle.

Step7: Go back to rectangle icon you used from the left before.  Draw another box with width: 95.714, height: 30.000 and Rx: 11.064. Drag it to the right side of the first rectangle as shown below.

Step8: Select both the items and from Path choose Union.

Step9: Now we shrink the size of our drawing to width: 84.285 and height: 41.430 and go Path>Object to Path. You can now use it for making any jewelry. Here we will make a bracelet.

Step10: Choose circle icon from the left menu. In shortcut, you can also press F5. Draw a circle. Keep its width: 654.429 and height: 648.714. The one drawn here is kept in red color because of better visibility. Once you draw the circle select it and then choose Path>Object to Path.

Step11: Go back to the first chain portion and rotate it 90 degree clockwise.

Step12: Raise it to the top. That would be object>Raise to top.

Step13: Select both the items and then go to Extensions>Generate from Path>Scatter.

Step14: Now you will have scatter box. Here for space between the lines choose -1.4. Next click Apply and then Close. Our bracelet is partially complete. We don’t need the circle standing behind it. So we delete it.

Step 15: Select the first chain piece and then from Fill and Stroke box choose any yellow color. Here we go for dbaf15ff. This will change the color of our bracelet also.

Step 16: Now go to stroke paint to choose a darker shade of the first yellow color. For this one, we have 9d631cff.

Step 17: Select the bracelet by clicking it and duplicate it.

Step 18: Keep the piece selected and then go Filters>Ridges>Thin Membrane.

The bracelet is now fully complete.

How to make a Cool Gemstone Using Inkscape

It is a bit tricky to make a nice gemstone. Much of it has to do with the glare. The strokes can also be taken as difficult to work with. They have a tendency to make the stone look like an average clipart from the 90s. In this tutorial, you will learn how to avoid those issues to get your gem stone to look more professional. Basically, this is what you will learn to make:

Instructions

Cute Buttons in CSS Codes

Material design apparently is injurious to site health. It has a tendency to camouflage navigation bars for which visitors get confused about where to click. This basically means gradient buttons are what your readers will prefer. But you do not need to use actual background for it. CSS can do it all for you. Still if you ran out of ideas on what you want feel free to use the following button codes.

1. Pink glossy buttons:

Make 3 Different Sparkles Quicker in Inkscape (Part 4)

Who doesn't like convenience? Even in art, it is heaven sent. So here we have three different sparkles which you can make almost under a few minutes.

If you just practice you will be able to bring the time to under seconds.

Make Soft Thin Sparkles in Inkscape (Part 3)

Here is another sparkle, but this time, it is soft and thin. Once again, it is done using Inkscape in the same way we made the other two.

We are again using the star feature. As you can see, our star will have 4 corners with a spoke ratio of 0.050. Rounded is 0.020. There is nothing to randomize. Keep it at 0.000. Feel free to copy these digits. When you past it to their boxes hit enter each time to get the shape we will be having here.

This is how you make the thin sparkles:

Make Diamond Sparkles in Inkscape (Part 2)

What makes diamond sparkles different from the flower like ones is that they have balls in the middle. They look better in tiny shapes. Inkscape is a great tool for making them.

 

Make Sparkles That Look Like Flowers in Inkscape (Part 1)

Making of sparkles in Inkscape can be quite fun. They can be given any form we like. The secret lies in the manipulation of the star you will find on the top of the program's canvas.

Inkscape Tutorial for a Glossy Heart

Traditionally, there are many ways of making glossy heart with Inkscape. It is all in how and where the shine goes. The tutorial given for this specific one uses mainly flat color option. It also tells how to give bump to the heart by color and blur manipulation.