Software Used: CorelDRAW 9
Text effect created with Cutting
Edge F/X for Corel Photo-Paint.
This is a fairly simple tutorial for a border that is constructed primarily using the blend tool in CorelDRAW 9. It should work in all previous versions of CorelDRAW that have the blend tool, and any other illustration software with a blend tool.
1.)
Start by drawing a circle about 1/2 inch in diameter. Use the
ellipse tool 
and hold down the Ctrl key to constrain the ellipse to a circle.
2.) Change the fill to any solid color by clicking on the color palette with the left mouse button, and change the outline to 'none' by clicking on the white X in the palette with the right mouse button.
3.) With the circle selected, hit the + sign on the numeric keypad of your keyboard. This places a duplicate of the object on top of the original.
4.) Hold the Ctrl key down as you move the duplicate a few inches down from the original. The Ctrl key constrains the movement to a straight line.
5.) Repeat the last step moving the duplicate to the right a few inches, then repeat again moving the duplicate up a few inches.
6.)
Select the top two circles, and type 'B', this is the
shortcut key to align the two objects along the bottom edges.
You
should now have four circles forming a rectangular shape.
7.)
Now select the interactive blend tool 
.
Click on the top left circle and drag down to the bottom left
circle.
In the property bar, adjust the blend steps until you have a scalloped edge you're happy with. My drawing required 8 steps. Yours may require more or less depending on the size of the circles and how far apart they are.
8.) Next drag from the bottom left circle to the bottom right circle. Adjust the blend steps as needed again. My drawing used 12 steps.
9.) Do the same on the right edge and the top using the samenumber of steps as the coressponding oposite side.
Now your drawing should look like this:
10.) Now when you click on any portion of your drawing, the entire drawing is selected. That's because each of the objects are part of a blend control group. We want to use the trim command later, so we need to separate the objects, then weld them into a single curve.
11.) Go to Arrange -> Separate. This separates the control objects from the blend group.
12.) Next select each of the four blend groups and click Ungroup All on the property bar.
13.)
We're left with several individual circle shapes. Drag a marquee
with the pick tool to select them all. On the property bar,
click the 
weld button. The objects are combined into a single curve.
14.)
Next draw a rectangle over the scalloped border so the edges
of the rectangle are just outside of the inner scalloped edge
of the border ias shown in the example to the right.
15.)
Drag a marquee around both objects to select them. Click the
trim button on the property bar. The rectangle is replaced with
white, but it's still an object. 
Select
just the rectangle and delete it. Your border should look like
this:
The purpose of the last step was to cut out the center section, so that when place over another image, the image below will show through.
16.) Move to one of the corners of your border and zoom in close.
17.)
Draw a tiny circle and color it white with no outline. The size
of my circle is .07 inches.
18.) Duplicate the circle twice and arrange them as shown. Then group the three circles.
19.) Type Ctrl-D to duplicate the group, and drag the duplicate into place inside the next scalloped section. Type Ctrl-D repeatedly to place the objects inside each of the scalloped sections across the top row.
20.)
When you get them placed along the top row, It's a good idea
to vary the rotation of the grouped circles, just to give it
a little variety. You can rotate each group by clicking on it
twice, then draging near the corner rotation handle.
21.) Duplicate the top row and drag it into place for the bottom edge.
22.) Repeat the last two steps for the left and right edges.
23.) Finally, you will want to select the entire border and group it. Below is the finished border.
At any time you can change the color by ungrouping the border, selecting just the colored portion, and choosing a new color. If you like, save the image to the Scrapbook Docker so you'll have easy access to it when you want to use it in another project.
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CorelDRAW Tutorials from your Guide
Sue
Chastain
Your Guide to Graphics Software
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Images:
Copyright 1999, S. Chastain, unless otherwise noted.
Screen shots captured with Corel Capture 9. Image conversion
and optimization with Photoshop 5.5.
