Since I'm a bit of a clipart guru, I thought I'd show you a couple tricks that will add a little pizzazz to the things you make. Today is a video tutorial showing you how to add shadow and glow to your clipart and words. Some of you are already pros at it. Katie King and Amy Lemons are two that come to mind. You can check out their resources and see what I'm talking about. :) Enjoy! Be sure to press that little square/circular button in the lower right-hand corner to enlarge the video and see my steps. Easy huh? Here's the Derby Kids Clipart Set if you're interested. If you're into pinning, then here's a little button to pin! Hope you're having a blessed week. :)
Today's tutorial was a request from a follower who says "I made my first one [printable] a few weeks back, but had some trouble keeping everything lined up the same." I hope this helps. I don't know who you are (my suggestion form is nameless), but good for you! Making sure your product doesn't throw us type-A people into a mental breakdown. :)
I know this is another pet peeve of mine... misaligned printables that require cutting. Would you be excited to cut this?
Trust me. Spending a few extra minutes to make sure everything is nicely aligned will be worth it. All of us Type-A (crazy) people will be satisfied... and you'll be putting paper trimmers to work around the world.
Here are 4 basic ways to align your printables.
A pet peeve of mine, naturally, is squished clipart. It drives me nuts. I'm sure I drive you nuts, but not like this... This is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Let's discuss the why...
1. The background is a hot mess. It's beautiful and adorable in it's full-size glory, but my lack of tiling it has resulted in a clipart muffin top. Not attractive.
2. The star. There's no reason for it to even be squished like that. It's making me sick. If you're a newbie to making your own printables, then these videos might be helpful to you. I know, personally, that I will hop right no past any products that look anything like the star card above. I'm picky and like things to look proportional.
This first one shows you how to "unsquish" that background paper and make it look normal.
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The next video is super beginner-level. It shows you how to resize clipart while keeping it proportional. I also show you a couple ways to avoid squishing images. Sorry I'm sick and sound like a man in this one. Also, I barely ran out of time so the end is crazy. Haha!
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My last words were "Hope that helps!" :)
Hopefully this helped if your somewhat new to making your own things. :) Happy Tuesday everyone.
And "Just Say No".... to squishing... and drugs.
Mostly to drugs though.
Happy Tuesday everyone! I hope you're having a great week so far. Today, I wanted to share with you a little bit about how I organize my life... schedules, to do lists, blog calendar, idea lists, etc. I've always been the hopeless notebook type. I love buying new calendars and notebooks, but I'm h.o.r.r.i.b.l.e. at at keeping it up. Absolutely horrible. I can't tell you how many half-used calendars and little schedule notebooks I've thrown away. I start off great and then just give up. Anyone else like that? Erin Condren still tempts me though.
Here's my new bff...
Recently, I forced myself to get into the habit of using iCloud to do everything. Let me tell ya... I'm in love. It was a little tough at first to get into the routine, but I'm golden now. I have been able to get (and STAY) organized over the past two months. It's so nice. No, you don't need a Mac. Just an Apple id. The purpose of iCloud is to sync all of your Apple devices (iPhone, Mac, iPad, etc.) and allow content to be accessed from any device. So, all my stuff is on my computer, iPad, and phone. However, you don't have to have any of these devices to take advantage. All you need is an iTunes account.... which you probably do. (If not, google it. It's easy to do.)
Once you have an Apple id, go to icloud.com and log in. You'll see this screen: You've got a lot of great tools to keep you organized! | | Mail You can sync all of your various email accounts. I've got four... yowza. So with one click, I can access any messages! Yay!!! | | | Contacts Family, friends, colleagues, and blogging buddies... all in one place! I can even sync up their birthdays to the calendar. I like that I don't have to mess with one of those little tabbed notebooks. :) | | | Calendar This is my FAVORITE part. The Calendar. I have so many different calendars that I need to keep track of... school, grad school, blogging, birthdays, personal stuff, etc. Apple's calendar allows you to have lots of different calendars, view days/weeks/months at a time, color code events, set them to repeat, and lots of other fun features... including attaching documents to dates (like a class agenda). It's kept my butt nice and organized recently. | | | Notes Wishlists, ideas, clipart requests, project ideas.... all in one place. I can have as many different notes as I want! When I'm done, I just erase a line or completely delete the note. Coolest part? I can email it to myself or a friend! | | | Reminders This little beauty allows you to make little checklists, to do lists, or set reminders that can sync to your calendar. Need to remember to order flowers before Grandma's birthday? Voila. Never disappoint grandma again... like I did. | | | Find My iPhone/iPad Leave your iPad laying on a chair in the Chicago airport? No? That's just me? Thanks to this little app, you have a little more hope of finding your device. You can make it beep (so you can find it under the couch), locate it on a map, or wipe the data in case it gets jacked. | | | iWork I don't use this one because I don't have a Mac, but this allows you to use Pages (Word), Keynote (PPT), and Numbers (Excel) on your devices... and syncs your work. Kind of like the Dropbox concept. | I LOVE having everything in one place and the fact that it updates on each device. No more notebooks, stupid notes everywhere, or feeling so disorganized.
I just wanted to share a little techy organization tip with ya! I hope you enjoyed! Let me know if you're inspired to try it out. I definitely haven't found anything that I like using more than this. It's simple, everything's in one place, and it works.
Happy Tuesday everyone!
Last week, I posted a little suggestion form for Technology Tuesday topics. Someone submitted a great idea and I thought I'd do a little video tutorial for it. :) I hope that was helpful! Now you can make lines by yourself! Yay!!! Hahaha. Here are some links to handwriting fonts that contain the lines: Have a great Tuesday!
| I've been getting a lot of requests to make more cute fonts like the numbers I have in my shop. I just don't have time and it's honestly SUPER easy to do yourself. :) Here's a little video to show you how to jazz up that boring "Word Art" feature with digital background papers.
Enjoy! | | Click the little icon that looks like a circle with triangles around it. It will show the video on your whole screen so you can see better! If you don't have any digital papers to try out with this, then visit my TPT shop to grab some free ones or purchase a set. :) Happy Tuesday everyone!
Today's post is more of an app review. Lately, I've been dying to have my own handwriting as a font. I've seen a few of my blog friends using their own and it seems so cool (aka. I'm jealous) So, I splurged and bought the iFontMaker app on my iPad. I believe I spent $6.99, but it was well worth it. Here's why...
1. It's SUPER easy to use.
2. It's fast.
3. It's ridiculously easy to send fonts to your computer.
4. I now have my handwriting as a font
5. I can whip up a font whenever I want now! Woohoo!  The App button looks like this.
Here's what I was able to do in about an hour (after the first one took about 15 minutes). Disregard the incredibly original font names. I wanted them to be grouped together when I uploaded them, so I named them all "Ashley ..."
They are so beautiful huh? Bahahaha. I am SOOOOOO terrible at it. My favorite is "Ashley Skinny." It's my handwriting... and feeds my dream of one day shedding twenty pounds. Now that I see "Ashley Fancy" on here, I hate it. Gross. What a hot mess. I've decided that I should stick to clipart and not delve into the world of fonts. There are PLENTY of talented ladies out there to feed my addiction. Here are my favorites: Jessica Stanford
Sandra MatadamasRowdy in Room 300A Cupcake for the Teacher
Jen Jones
Kimberly GesweinKevin & Amanda
If you're interested in checking out the app, then there's a great tutorial video below (from 2ttf). Make sure you're ready to party before you watch. The music will send you into "glowstick mode". Tutorial Video: Pretty cool right? It's seriously easy to use and fun to play with. I know they have other versions (for PC), but I haven't really spent time investigating those. You'll find info if you just check out their website.www.2ttf.comHave a great Tuesday!
| Today is an awesome post. I like it anyway. For those of you addicted to Pinterest, then you'll love this new trick if you don't already know about it.
I LOVE how easy Pinterest is to use, so who knew they'd come up with ways to make it even easier?
You know the drill:
1. Visit a website
2. Click your "Pin It" button on your toolbar
3. Scroll down and hunt for that mini picture
4. Click Pin
5. Choose the board & edit the description
6. ... and Pin |
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| Today, my goal is to help you eliminate steps 2 and 3... if you still do it the way I described. A lot of sites are now installing little Pinterest hover buttons OR the little "Pin It" buttons next to photos, which is awesome. (I've got it on my 'to do' list and that's how I came across this little gem during my search.) However, until all of your favorites do that, then you might want to try this trick, called a QuickPin extension. Basically, it allows you to right click a picture and select "Pin" from the menu versus the old way. It's awesome and has made it so much easier for me to pin.
Photo of Chrome Extension
For Chrome: 1. Visit this extension link (called QuickPin) 2. Click "Add to Chrome" 3. Done. You're ready to start right-clicking and pinning! | For Firefox:
| For Int. Exlporer: Boo. :( I spent about 20 minutes trying to find a way to do it on Internet Explorer, but no luck. If you know how, then please let me know in the comment section. I'd LOVE to add it! | I hope that helps to make your pinning a lot easier in the future! Have a great week. ***While finishing this post and doing more research, I came across Kevin and Amanda's post. Dang it! If you want to know hot to do the hover button thing (or the same thing I just explained), then their post is fabulous! ***
| Today for Technology Tuesday, I thought I'd do another little video tutorial for ya! Today's topic:
How to Make your Blog Background "Fixed" (in Blogger)
Some of you know that recently I've been having some issues on the site. I've had to do a lot of self-learning about how to code in HTML and CSS. The width of the site changed, backgrounds went missing, and the whole shebang. I'm STILL working on it when I get time. I got a couple of messages from followers asking how I made my background "not move when you scroll." Well, here you go...
|  Pin Me! | Here's that great link that you'll need to do it yourself! I hope that was easy and useful if you've been wondering how to do it. :) I'm linking up with my blog buddy today... Katie King! She started hosting "Techy Teacher Tuesdays", so my Technology Tuesdays will fit perfectly! :) Head on over to check out some more great tech tips. Happy Tuesday everyone! :)
Today for Technology Tuesday, I'd like to share a goldmine with you. 100 Best Video SItes for Educators by EdudemicOh goodness. This is such a great resource. I try to show quick little clips or videos as often as I can, so I will definitely be referring to this list often. Videos work especially well with EFL students because not only do they support my visual and audio learners, they get a chance to hear another English speaker besides me. Haha. This is a short post today, but the content is really in the link. Have fun browsing through it! :)
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