Another way to look at it is to encapsulate what you already know how to do in a method so that you can call it with different parameters. A call to the method might look like:
print(7, "*")
and the method signature would look like:
public void print(int times,
String element)
once you've got that working (hint hint, you have the code for that one pretty much written) you can work out a loop that calls the method with different arguments:
until you're done. To my little brain that's easier to understand than nested loops, as always though, your mileage may vary.