Sizing Your Arabesque Ornaments

Arabesque tile Ornaments are all over Pinterest. I even bought some SVGs to get an idea of how to make them. There was one BIG problem. I bought several packs of the tiles at Menards. They were all a different size and shape. Now what? Sizing your ornaments can be a little tricky. As a math minor in college, I had to find a simple answer. Now I made two basic designs and those are available on the download page. Hopefully you can use one of those, but if not here is how to make your own.

The Basic Shape of Arabesque Ornaments

Arabesque ornaments all have the same basic rules to their shapes. But as you can tell from the examples below, those parts can vary.

They all have a rectangle (green) and two circles in the middle (red), which are welded together. Then the corners have four circles (blue), usually the same size as the red ones, that are sliced out of the welded shape. The radius of the circles vary, as does the size of the rectangle and the distance between each part. The two above when put all together look like the pictures below. The first two are different sizes of the same basic design, but the third is totally different. And you can’t simply resize them. So how do you figure out where everything should go? There is an easy way and a hard way.

First the Hard Way for Sizing Your Arabesque Ornaments

This way is harder but if you don’t have a scanner, it is the only way. I have put together this video to explain it. You will need a ruler and a lot of patience. There are lots of measurements to take and I will explain them all.

Play Video

Watch this video on sizing your Arabesque ornaments if you don’t have a scanner. It is also available at my YouTube Channel

Then There is the “Easy” Way for Sizing Your Arabesque Ornaments

This requires a scanner. I made another video with this method. You can tell from the length of the videos that this is so much easier. The only measurements you need are total length and total height.

This video explains the method of sizing the Arabesque ornaments using your scanner. It is also available on my YouTube Channel

Play Video

Conclusion

Hopefully your ornaments follow one of the sizes I already created. The files for those ornaments are available in my download list. But if you have a different size then you will need to follow one of these methods for making a base pattern and sizing your Arabesque ornaments. If you have any questions, feel free to email me or just post a comment below and I will answer it as quick as I can. If you choose to post a comment then everyone else can see it and maybe help them too.

You are now ready to move on to the designs for decorating. I have some designs already made but also give you some tips on designing your own in the next tutorial here.