Re: how to create the grunge floral banner

[Albacore]

The swirls and flowers are no problems as if you do a search on those topics there are plenty of either EPS, AI or PDF files available which you could use. I would also suggest that you have a look at this workbook from Gary: http://www.xaraxone.com/webxealot/workbook24/page_3.htm

The trouble with using Xara for doing this grunge look is that Xara and Illustrator have very different brushes and in Illustrator it is far easier to make a convincing Grunge effect by using the pathfinder after expanding the stroke. What you could try is to use the Pencil draw a few lines where you want the Grunge effect to be and select the Petal Brush, "Convert the Line to a Shape" through the arrange menu and ungroup the resulting shapes. The select the shape that you want to apply the effect to along with a few of the ungrouped petal and then do a Ctrl + 2 (Subtract Shapes). If you have any problems following the instructions please come back and I will try to do a mini tutorial for you but please have a look at Gary's Workbook first.

[con]

with a little bit of fooling around i managed to make this