# Total novice needs help quickly!

**URL:** <https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/total-novice-needs-help-quickly/2446>\
**Category:** Modeling Questions\
**Created:** [May 29, 2018, 10:19pm UTC](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/total-novice-needs-help-quickly/2446 "2018-05-29T22:19:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Suehammerland](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.shapr3d.com/suehammerland/32/1932_2.png) [@Suehammerland](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/u/Suehammerland)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2018, 10:19pm UTC](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/total-novice-needs-help-quickly/2446/1 "2018-05-29T22:19:26Z")

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Hi everyone out there. I am an old woman who is trying to create a simple 3-d printed 1/16” stencil to use on a series of paintings. It’s basically a border design and I’m trying to finish it before my trial use is over on the first of June, when everything turns into a pumpkin, including my novice brain.

I thought I had figured-out how to close up all my line drawings into closed shapes that I then could use the extrude tool to make a stencil. My rendering was far from perfect, but close enough for now. Finally I got the border shapes to close up but I have these two shapes above and below that will eventually have hand-painted script, and they are not turning into closed shapes that I can extrude.

This border etc. will eventually be part of a 12” x 16” painting of a seed packet for an imaginary GMO flower. I do post-apocalyptic botanicals.

![image](https://cdck-file-uploads-us1.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/flex002/uploads/shapr3d/original/2X/e/e5b4ceee57d7f8ad539bb62022e1ea7616550d3e.png)

If I could send someone a file of what I’ve done, and you could see what I’m screwing up, that would be most helpful.

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**Author:** ![Istvan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.shapr3d.com/istvan/32/23668_2.png) [@Istvan](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/u/Istvan)\
**Post date:** [May 29, 2018, 10:22pm UTC](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/total-novice-needs-help-quickly/2446/2 "2018-05-29T22:22:29Z")

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Somewhere your sketches are not connected. You can easily figure it out by splitting your sketch with lines for a few times.

Was that quick enough? 😉