Tech Tips Round 2: How to Flatten Images

Alrighty friends! It is time for Round 2 of Tech Tips! I am going to show you how to flatten your images in a product and then save them as a PDF!

 

A reason that you need to flatten your images is because you do not want people to steal some of your product and take credit for it! Most Clipart Artists, also require that their images be flattened in their terms of use.

 

 

You will start with your product. Mine is a simple poster that I use to help count the days of school!

 



Fonts are Kimberly Geswein, Clip Art is Krista Wallden, and Backgrounds are Megan Farve.

 

 

Once you have finished your product, make sure you save your work as a PowerPoint. Then, you are going to want to save your work again and change the Save As Type to a PNG file. Make sure you are saving them to a place you can find them! Then click Save.

 

 

A window pops up and asks if you want to save all of your slides or just your current slide. I always select every slide. Once you do that, you will receive a confirmation message.

 

 

You will then create a new PowerPoint presentation. Format the slides to match your original product then right click and select format background from the pop up menu.

 

 

A screen will come up and you will first select Picture or Texture fill and then select insert from file. Then go and find the images that you saved and select the first one.

 

 

Magically, your image will now be the background! No clipart can be "lifted" from the product now! You will have to go through this process for all of the slides. Once you learn the routine, it doesn't take much time at all to get the hang of it!

 

 

So here are all of my slides, in the new PowerPoint, where the images are now my backgrounds!

 

 

You will want to save this as a new PowerPoint Presentation just incase you ever need to modify the PowerPoint in the future without starting all over!

 

The next thing you will do is save this PowerPoint as a PDF. It is really quite simple. All you do is go to File, Save As and then change the Save As Type to a PDF.

 

 

When I save things as PDFs the file normally opens automatically but if yours doesn't you can go and find it and open it! So here is my saved PDF!

 

 

Now let me mention that if you have links in your PowerPoint, those links will not work now that the slides have been "flattened." However, in the next Tech Tip, I will show you how to make links and images clickable! I use that tip a ton when making Credits Pages!

 

Let me know if you have any questions! I would love to chat with you!



All About This Kinder Teacher Link Up!

Can we just all take a minute and freak out because this is FIFTH blog post in a row! If you have been following me longer than a week, you can understand how big of a victory this is! 

Since a lot of you have only been following me for a few weeks or even less, it is such a great opportunity for me to link up with my gals at KinderTribe and share All About This Kinder Teacher!

For those of you I don't know, allow me to introduce myself! My name is Lindsey Nihart and I am a Kindergarten Teacher in North Carolina. I have been teaching for two and a half years. I am one of those silly people who decide to start teaching in January! 

I definitely CANNOT live with out my sweet tea! I normally make a stop before school each morning to pick some up to start my day out right! 

I absolutely love Flair Pens like you wouldn't believe and I use card stock like it is running out of style! 

I don't know about you but, I love reading the Cat in the Hat to my Kinder friends! Right when I read it to them aloud is right about when the light bulb goes off and they realize that they can read that book on their own! I wouldn't even say that it is the book that I love so much but the inspiration and encouragement that my kiddos get from the Cat in the Hat. 

Cara Carroll from The First Grade Parade is by far my favorite Kindergarten blog! I started reading Cara's blog right as soon as I started my education major in college. I have gotten so many wonderful ideas and so much encouragement from her. I'm kind of just waiting for her to ask for applications to be her new bestie because I am totally there. 

I absolutely love teaching Kindergarten because the kids are just so excited to be in school and love it! I also gain so much from watching these babies grow into little people! 

{Secretly: I also like to teach Kindergarten because I really enjoy being these kids first experience with school. I work really hard to make sure that they have a memorable and fun first year of school!}

If you are a Kinder Teacher, go to Kinder Tribe, grab the picture and link up with us! I would love to meet you! 

A HUGE Announcement + Giveaway!

Have you ever been so excited about something that you are just giddy about it? Like so giddy, you kind of squeal out loud and possibly jump up and down just thinking about it? 

No?

Oh, Me Either.

NOT!!!

Y'all, I have had the amazing opportunity to be a tiny part in getting a new Kindergarten collaborative blog launched and today it is finally live! I definitely did the jumping up and down and squealing thing! I LOVE IT! 

I have mentioned being a part of the Kinder Tribe in a previous post! Well this tribe is just amazing and so many good ideas and opportunities were happening in this tribe so we decided to start a collaborative blog about all things KINDER! 

This is such an amazing thing and unlike any other blog that I have ever seen. I love the concept of have a one place as a host for so many ideas for Kindergarten! There are a team of 16 Kinder Teachers that are admin for the blog. Can you believe that they chose me to be one of the admins! I die. If you want to meet the other lovely 15 ladies that I have teamed up with you can click on the Meet the Teachers tab on the Kinder Tribe Blog. 

However, there is opportunity for ALL Kinder teachers to join in on the fun! We are hosting several linky parties and would love for you to be a part of it! Keep in the loop by joining our Facebook Group here. 

In order to celebrate to blog launch, we are hosting a HUGE giveaway over at Kinder Tribe! Some of the prizes are a clip art bundle, several TPT product bundles, a $75 gift card to TPT, and more! Click the button below to check it out! 

Tech Tips Round 1- Grabbing Color Tutorial

On Periscope, I have shared a few Tech Tips and want to share them with you if you weren't able to catch the replay! So for the first round of Tech Tips, we are going to learn how to "grab colors from your clip art!

I am kind of lame and and don't have any of the fancy programs that you have to buy in order to grab colors! I like to stick with the FREE so today we are using the website PIXLR! I learned about this website from Megan Farve from I Teach What's Your Superpower?.

Let's me show you how this works! 

So let's pretend that you are working with a something that starts out looking like this: 

Background by Megan Farve and girl by Krista Wallden. 

The next thing that I want to do is create a shape at the top to form a header for the title! I have created a rectangle that spans the width of the slide. You can do this with any shape.

 After I do that, I want to scroll down on the home page on PIXLR and choose to launch the web app for PIXLR EDITOR. 

 Then, choose to open up an image from your computer. 

 I chose to use the background paper however if you want to grab colors from a piece of clip art, you totally can! 

 The next thing you will want to do is click the black rectangle that is in the bottom of the tool bar. 

When you do, a color wheel will pop up and your arrow icon will change to a dropper icon. 

 Click the color that you would like to grab and check out the RGB codes that I have highlighted with the black rectangle. You will need these codes in order to change the color on your rectangle in Powerpoint! 

Then I go back into PowerPoint, click on my shape, go to shape fill, and click on more fill colors. 

 This screen pops up and I type in the RGB code that I got from the PIXLR Editor. I then press OK. 

 Once I do that, I have now grabbed a color! 

You can grab colors for backgrounds, shapes, texts, and even outlines of objects as well! 

I hope that this tutorial was easy to follow and let me know if you use this method of grabbing color by commenting below! If you have any questions, you can also put them in comment section!

Thanks guys! Round 2 of Tech Tips will be coming to you soon! 

HP Instant Ink-- A Game Changer

I am back today to tell you about a game changer when it comes to printing! It has been ALL over the teacher blogger world the last few months and I joined in about 6 weeks ago. 

The program that I am referring to is the HP Instant Ink program. This program will save you some MEGA bucks when it comes to printing and ink cartridges! 

HP instant ink is very similar to a monthly subscription program where you are charged a monthly fee and ink cartridges are sent to you on an as needed basis. 

Before you sign up, you need to make sure that you have an eligible printer. HP only allows certain printers to participate in the HP Instant Ink Program!

 I currently have the HP ENVY 4500. In my Periscope on HP Instant Ink, I shared that I would totally recommend my printer, especially for the average person! If you are very particular and want a higher quality of a print, this might not be the printer for you but I have really enjoyed it! In fact, my sweet friend Kimberly found my printer on sale at Staples for 60 bucks! Such a steal! 

Here are the printers that qualify! 

There are several plans that you can sign up for on their website! I signed up for the largest plan. I think I am definitely going to need it with Back to School just around the corner! The other neat thing about these plans is that unused pages roll over to the next month and that you can adjust your plan from month to month until you find the plan that works best for you! 

So once you sign up and choose a plan, HP sends you their Instant Ink cartridges. HP says that these are actually bigger and hold more ink than any of their other cartridges! Once your ink starts getting low, they send you more cartridges as you need them so you are never without ink! The shipping is always included in the monthly cost as well! 

I can't tell you how much I have already enjoyed HP instant ink! I know for a fact that I have saved $$ on printer ink just in 6 weeks! 

If you are convinced and want to sign up for HP Instant Ink, click here. 

Please let me know if you have any questions and I will try my best to answer them for you! 

Why Hello There!

Hey guys!!! I have missed you! I know that it has been a long while since I have blogged but I am so thankful to say that my blogging hiatus is now over! So many exciting things are going on in my life right now and I want to share a few of them with you right now! 

{first}

I am on PERICOPE! 

Y'all, this app is amazing and has completely changed my view on social media! I have been on Periscope for a couple of days now and I have been thrilled with all of the phenomenal things that I have learned and have experienced! 

YES! Over 300 followers! I CANNOT get over it! I set the goal to hit 300 by the end of the day and here it is in the afternoon and I have already passed my goal by a huge amount! 

Now these wonderful ladies, have been key in the Periscope Teacher Movement and I spent forever last night fan-girling about each one of them following me and watching my broadcasts! UNREAL!

I plan on sharing some of the things that I have been talking about on the blog in the next few days so stay tuned! 

 {two}

 I have found my TRIBE! If you have not heard of tribes before this, a tribe is a group of teachers and teacher bloggers who are there to collaborate, support, and celebrate with you! 

I am a part of two tribes! The Carolina Teacher Blogger Tribe and the Kinder Tribe! They are both Facebook Groups who are doing some amazing things already! If you are in either of the Carolinas or a Kindergarten Teacher, go and request to join the respective tribe! You will NOT be sorry! 

Have a Happy Weekend Friends!