photoshop-ish?

I'm kind of new to the whole creating-my-own-materials game. Or, at least, the fancy side of it. Most of my teacher-created materials this past year involved Boardmaker and MS word. Occasionally, there was even glue/scissors/white-out and multiple photocopies. Not fancy.

I decided I wanted to branch out this year, and I mentioned a few posts ago that I was trying to make my own classroom decor set in Power Point. I'm not sure I'd used PP more than five times in college, and I didn't have that mad of skills in middle/high school. I watched a few YouTube videos and went at it, though. My big thing was: where do you find cute shapes to put over the background? Like, frames?

Well, I found some, after poking around a few sites. Check.

But, wait! The insides are transparent! And using Fill in PP makes the whole thing filled in. Grrr.

To google!

. . . I need Photoshop???

Okay, yeah. I'd love photoshop. And my own swimming pool. And for a 7-11 around here to actually carry regular Mango (not sugar-free!) Slurpees. And lots of other things. I don't have the money for photoshop. . .

But, I found this website, Splashup. It worked really well, for my purposes. And it was simple. And free.

So, now I'm on to making classroom labels for my arts/crafts stuff, literacy supplies, math manipulatives, and whatnot. Wanna see?

Okay, I don't have a CU license for the graphic from Scrappin Cop, (mostly because I'm trying to decide between the unlimited one or individual one) so I can't give away/sell these. (Yet. Let me know if you'd be interested.) I think it's kosher to post a screencap like this, though.

I know most teacher-bloggers are already doing much more creative stuff than this, but I was proud of my small accomplishment. Hopefully someone out there can benefit from the Splashup link, too.