PowerPoint – mrs. jigg

The Dumpling Turns Four: A Not-So-Scary Halloween Birthday Bash

Published on November 6, 2019 by Mrs. jiggLeave a comment

I was able to get away with not throwing the Dumpling a birthday party last year, but not anymore. Having attended countless birthday celebrations of her friends, the Dumpling had specific requests of how she wanted to celebrate her fourth birthday.

Between a My Little Pony or Halloween themed bash, the Dumpling surprising chose the latter — probably because she wanted to wear her princess costumes. So this year, we threw another not-so-scary Halloween birthday party.

Invitation

I sent out an electronic mummy-themed invitation to set the tone of the party. As much as I love physical invitations, digital ones are just so much easier to send and track…not to mention more environmentally friendly!

Mummy invitation created in PowerPoint.

Party Favors

Goody bags are necessary evils because the kids get so excited about them…for about 15 minutes. I tried to keep the items practical and within the budget of $2-3 per bag. My strategy was to buy items in sets and then separated each into individual gifts. Below are a few ideas I considered:

I stuffed each bag with candy, a sheet of temporary tattoo, and tied everything together with either a headband (for girls) or bow ties (for boys).

Decorations

I always make my own bunting because it’s inexpensive to create custom text and colors to match my decor.

Personalized bunting created in PowerPoint.

I also purchased a few small pumpkins and simple decorations from Amazon that I put up a few hours before the party.

Thank you to C-cakes for these bite size cupcakes!

Games & Activities

Along with a trampoline and bouncy castle that came with the venue rental, we played games to keep the kids entertained. I had prizes prepared for the winners, and theoretically every child had a chance to win something. Unfortunately there were still a few tears because everyone wanted to be winners at the same time…lesson learned for the next party!

Wrap a Mummy: We divided the kids into groups and provided them with two rolls of toilet paper. The team who finished wrapping an adult with the toilet paper (covering head, hands, body, and legs) won.

Pumpkin Relay Race: Each kid must race while balancing a pumpkin on his/her head.

Hot Pumpkin: Similar to hot potato, each kid must pass the pumpkins around. Whoever was holding a pumpkin when the music stopped, was out.

Craft Station: I set up a small table with crayons, coloring sheets, and craft supplies. This little corner surprisingly became a huge hit!

A station to make Halloween masks and cards.

A big thank you to everyone who came to celebrate. Happiest birthday to my little Dumpling, who really isn’t so little anymore!

Create Custom Postcards From Your Artwork

Published on August 29, 2019September 6, 2019 by Mrs. jiggLeave a comment

Here is a little secret: I upcycle the Dumpling’s old artwork all the time — either using them as raw material in new projects or digitally giving them second lives.

Remember the geometric tape resist animals from last summer? I framed the originals in her room and turned the digital copies into postcards using PowerPoint and printing on heavy card stock.

I shared my PowerPoint template and instructions of how I created the postcards below:

Take a picture of the artwork with your phone

Take pictures of the pieces (it can be anything, not just paintings) you would like to use with your phone, email, and save them to your desktop. Alternatively, scan the images and save them as high resolution (300 dpi) JPGs. I prefer the first method because I can make basic touch-ups (adjust brightness, color saturation, etc.) on my phone’s photo app if necessary.

Example of the digitized copy (picture taken with my iPhone) of our artwork.

Insert the images into the PowerPoint template

Download and open postcard template in PowerPoint. Slide 1 is where you insert the custom images, and Slide 2 is for your messages, addresses, and stamps. Please note that the template yields two A6 (4.1″ x 5.8″) postcards.

Click on the left white rectangle to prompt the SHAPE FORMAT option to appear. To fill in the shape with an image, click on SHAPE FILL → PICTURES → INSERT PICTURES FROM A FILE. Select the artwork file on your desktop.

Adjust the image size

PowerPoint automatically stretches the image to “fill” the shape, which sometimes distorts the picture size disproportionately. To fix this, click on the image and select PICTURE FORMAT → CROP → FIT.

Click on one of the white circles located at the corners of the image (NOT the black lines), and expand or contract the image while holding down the SHIFT key to adjust the dimensions proportionally. To re-position (ex: centering the image), click on the image and drag it to the desired position. Click on CROP again to set the new dimensions and placement.

From here, you can get fancy by adding custom text on top of the image, but that is entirely optional.

Repeat filling in the image and adjusting its position on the right rectangle.

Print on card stock

I prefer to save my PowerPoint file as a PDF (FILE → SAVE AS → PDF) prior to printing so that it can be universally opened by outside printers since I do not have a printer at home.

Print the PDF in actual size, double-sided on card stock and cut along the borders.

In this day and age, handwritten letters is becoming a lost art — something I intend to change with my kids. The Dumpling and I made an activity out of visiting the post office, sticking on stamps, and dropping our postcards in the mail box. We hope our friends and family would appreciate receiving these in the mail!

Bind Photos Into a Book

Published on June 18, 2019June 18, 2019 by Mrs. jiggLeave a comment

The photos on my phone are an un-curated mess, filled with blurred, unflattering, or accidental shots that should have been deleted long ago. As a result, the Dumpling and I would often get distracted by the 10,000+ images other than the ones I want to show her.

After our recent family vacation, I printed a few photos that highlighted our trip and bound them into a miniature book. Sharing real, physical pictures was such a refreshing experience in this digital age. The format helped the Dumpling better recount the events in chronological order and served as a keepsake of our holiday.

The book served as a personal keepsake or can be given away as a personalized gift!

The photo book, which measures 3″ w x 4″ h, was made from folding a standard 6″ x 4″ photo in half. The below tutorial shows how to print two images per spread. To create one image per spread, just print directly from your phone.

1. Adjust slide size to standard 6″ w x 4″ h photo dimensions in a blank PowerPoint presentation.

2. Delete any text boxes on the slide. PowerPoint inserts the title and subtitle text boxes on the first slide by default, so select both and delete.

3. Insert 3″ w x 4″ h rectangle on the left half of the slide. PowerPoint uses a blue rectangle and black outline by default. While it does not matter what the fill color is, remove the shape outline. This is where the picture on the left spread will be.

4. Duplicate the rectangle and place it on the right half of the slide. This is where the picture on the right spread will be.

5. Fill the rectangles with photos. Instead of filling the shape with a color, select the option to fill it with an image. Repeat steps 3-5 on additional slides until reaching the number of desired pages (my recommendation is approximately 10-20).

(Pro-tip: Add text on top of the photos to tell a story!)

6. Convert the slides in JPGs. My local print shop only prints photos from JPGs or PNGs, so I had to convert my PowerPoint file into the acceptable format. I could not figure out how to export the images without compromising on the resolution (even though I checked all the settings!), so my workaround was to first save the slides as a PDF.

Then I converted the PDF into JPGs in Adobe Acrobat. If you do not have Acrobat, there are free conversion apps online.

7. Print on regular 6″ x 4″ photo paper.

8. Score and fold each printed photograph in half. Scoring creates a cleaner fold, especially on thicker paper stocks. If you do not have a scoring board, layer a folded towel under the photo, place a ruler on where the score line should be, and run the edge of an old credit card along the ruler to create the score line.

9. With the edges aligned, tape the back of the photos together using double-sided tape. I applied tape on the top, bottom, and outer margins of the photo, but not the inner margin located along the fold.

Once the photos are taped together, they form the inside pages of the book and the folds make up the spine.

10. Press the photos together under something heavy (i.e. textbooks) for about 24 hours. This limits the pages from puffing open on their own.

11. Tape the spine tightly together and then measure its width. This width varies depending on the number of pages, weight of the photo paper, and how well the pages were compressed together. For example, the width of my spine was approximately 0.5″. If unsure, add no more than 0.125″ to the measurement.

12. Create the book cover in PowerPoint. The process is similar to creating the inside pages of the book as demonstrated above, so I did not splice the demo video up into individual steps. In summary, adjust the slide size to US Letter dimensions (11″ x 8.5″) and insert a rectangle with the following dimensions: (6″ + width of spine spine) x 4″. For my example, it would be 6.5″ w x 4″ h. The rectangle should be placed at least 0.25″ away from the edges of the slide to prevent the image from being cut off during printing.

I have also added lines (at the 3″ and 3.5″ mark) to help indicate where I needed to score the book spine.

When “filling” the the rectangle with an image, PowerPoint automatically stretches the picture, so manually change this setting by switching to “Fit” under the “Crop” drop-down. To enlarge or shrink the image proportionally, click and drag the white circles on the corners AND hold down the SHIFT key simultaneously.

Cover image is downloaded from Freepik.

13. Print. I used standard 8.5″ x 11″ card stock. When printing, select “Actual Size” in the setting to prevent the printer from changing the image size.

14. Score and fold where spine ought to be, then cut out the cover.

15. Tape the cover onto the first and last page of the book. Again I only taped the top, bottom, and outer margins. Do not tape the spine of the book onto the cover because there needs to be wiggle room for the book to open and close.

Turn Your Child’s Artwork Into Colorful Text Prints (Part 2)

Published on November 17, 2018November 26, 2018 by Mrs. jiggLeave a comment

Could you have guessed that all these prints were created in PowerPoint with the Dumpling’s scrap art? It’s actually quite easy—all you need to make custom text art are scanned copies of your child’s artwork and access to PowerPoint!

(Before starting the tutorial below, please refer to Part 1 for tips on how to set up the PowerPoint slide to fit your paper that you would be printing on. I have since given up trying to narrate a tutorial because I’m just a terrible speaker!)

Step 1: Create and format your text in PowerPoint.

In a blank PowerPoint slide, go to “Insert”, select “Text Box” and draw a text box on the slide. Then type in your custom text and format it to your preference, but do not change your text color—keep it black.

(The fonts I used in the demo are Ice Cream Sandwich and Watermelon Script, both of which are free for personal use on dafont.com.)

Step 2: Save the file as JPG or PNG.

Go to “File”, “Save As”, and then select either “PNG” or “JPG” from the file type drop down.

Step 3: Delete the text box.

Click anywhere on the text box perimeter to select the box, then delete it—we don’t need it anymore!

Step 4: Insert your child’s artwork file.

Go to “Insert”, “Pictures”, and select the image file of your child’s artwork. Please note that it’s best to use a piece that’s abstract, bright and colorful, with lots of paint area coverage. Feel free to also resize the dimensions to fit your side if necessary.

Step 5: Insert the text art file.

Go to “Insert”, “Pictures”, and select the image file of your text that was created in Steps 1 and 2. This would temporarily cover your chid’s artwork, but don’t worry!

Step 6: Make the text transparent.

With the text art file selected, go to “Format”, click “Color”, and select “Set Transparent Color”. Then click anywhere on the text that is black. This function tells PowerPoint to transform anything that’s colored black into a transparent area. As a result, we see your child’s artwork layer that’s hidden underneath. Pretty cool right?

The “Set Transparent Color” function would work if you used black and white images as well—just insert them along with you text box in Step 1!

Here’s a demo with an image.

Update: More demo using black and white images!

Reindeer silhoutte used in the demo is downloaded from freeprettythingsforyou.com. The Esteh font is downloaded from dafont.com.

Unicorn silhouette used in the demo is downloaded from freeprettythingsforyou.com. The Esteh font is downloaded from dafont.com.

NYC skyline image downloaded from Freepik.

Turn Your Child’s Artwork Into Colorful Text Prints (Part 1)

Published on May 17, 2018May 16, 2019 by Mrs. jigg1 Comment

I recently created a bunch of alphabet coloring sheets for the Dumpling, and we went on a coloring rampage with all sorts of materials—watercolor, chalk, craft paint, shaving cream, etc. I thought her application and choices in colors were spot on, so I cleaned up a few of her pieces in Photoshop (I helped her “color within the lines”) to create these beautiful alphabet prints!

I received several inquiries on how the prints were created, and I was bummed out to tell others that they needed Photoshop. To make the project accessible to those who don’t have the program, I made two “electronic stencils” so they could be layered over existing artwork to replicate the same effect in PowerPoint. Since I needed “abstract” pieces for this method, it turned out to be a great way to give a few of the Dumpling’s old paintings a second life!

Learn how to create them in PowerPoint by first downloading my “electronic stencils” and then watching my video tutorial below. I’ll demonstrate how the stencils are created from scratch in my next post!

Downloads

Alphabet Print Video 14 — Electronic Stencil – Lowercase Alphabet

Create a Custom Coloring Sheet in PowerPoint

Published on May 2, 2018May 16, 2019 by Mrs. jigg1 Comment

One of my favorite activities to keep my two year old busy is coloring: I strap her into a highchair away from walls and other furniture, layer my dining table with a large plastic bag, and let her go at it.

Instead of buying coloring books, however, I typically make my own because I can tailor the graphics to my toddler’s interest—which lately has been the alphabet.

Creating a coloring sheet is actually quite easy in PowerPoint. Yes, PowerPoint—a program that typically comes bundled in our Microsoft Office! Check out my video* below for a quick tutorial. Print a bunch for the next rainy day activity or personalize it with someone’s name for your next gift bag stuffer along with a box of crayons!

* It’s my very first video tutorial! Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

A thought about the typefaces

One of my biggest pet peeves with children’s books, especially those that try to teach the alphabet, is their choice in typeface. Many popular ones use the two-story lowercase “a” and “g” for legibility reasons, but this could be confusing for pre-schoolers who are learning to write the one-story version. While it’s not a big deal with older kids and adults, the Dumpling and I definitely have had disagreements about this. Therefore, I tend to stick with Century Gothic as it has the one-story “a” and “g.” Comic Sans is another one that often comes pre-packaged with Office…laugh all you want, but kids actually like this!