Lightboxes: How To Make Your Own Slides!

Lightboxes from Heidi Swapp seem to be all the rage in the teacher world right now, and I can see why. They are sooooo fun! When I picked up my own Lightbox, I also picked up some accessories to go along with it. But, I quickly noticed if I wanted to use it A LOT, I was going to have to get creative!

So, with a lot of trial and error, I finally figured out how to make my own slides for my Lightbox. They turned out pretty cute!!!

Once I mastered it, I was able to make them really quickly! If you're more of a reader, I have listed step-by-step instructions and pictures for you just below. However, if you're more of a watch and learn person, scroll to the bottom for a screencast video.

Here's what you need (well, this is what I used):

A Lightbox! (I mean, I guess you don't HAVE to have one, but...)

Powerpoint

transparency sheets (make sure they are compatible with your printer)

**Just a quick note to start: Your Lightbox display space is bigger than your allowed print area, so we will create the original design on one slide in PPT, and then we will split the design later for printing.**

Step #1: Open Powerpoint. Change your page settings to 11" by 9". To do this, click on Themes, Slide Size, Page Setup. It WILL give you an error message and will prompt you to "fix" it. Just click OK to retain the dimensions you entered. 

Step #2: Insert a rectangle. Adjust the size to 2.87" by 11". Copy to create 2 more identical boxes.

Step #3: Line up the boxes vertically so the edges are touching.

Step #4: Create your design. Make sure you leave a little bit of space along the side edges. Remember-you're working about a half-inch outside of the print zone. Save your work as a PPT and as a picture.

Step #5: Open a new presentation in PPT. This time, change the slide size to 11" by 8.5". Ignore the error message to fix, and click OK.  

Step #6: Just like in step #2, you're going to insert rectangle that measure 2.87" by 11". You only need 2 this time! 

Step #7: Insert another slide into your Powerpoint. This time, you will only insert 1 rectangle. Remember the size is 2.87" by 11".

Step #8: Insert your picture into the first slide (the one with 2 boxes). This next part is VITAL to your slide. You MUST change the HEIGHT of your picture BACK to 9". The width will adjust accordingly.

Step #9: Adjust the picture so the top of your design matches the top of the first box. The corners should line up perfectly.

Step #10: Copy and paste the adjusted image onto your second slide, then go back to the first slide. Prepare to crop the image. You want to crop the image so it fits perfectly within those 2 boxes. (Now, I purposely left the lines on my designs to help guide me during cropping.) 

Step #11: After you crop, take note of the current height of the image. In order to crop the second picture, you will crop the DIFFERENCE between the original height and the new height and then move it into the third box. So, if your cropped image in your first slide was 5.74", then you would crop your second image to 3.26". That totals the original 9". (I hope that makes sense!) Crop the second image to fill the 3rd box. 

Step #12: Your 2 PPT slides should look like this. Now you can Print! (If you choose to save as a PDF, make sure you ALWAYS select to print "actual size" in the print box. Otherwise it will be too small for your Lightbox.) 

*Something I do is go back and reorder my layout. I want my image in the back and the boxes upfront so when they print, I can see the lines to cut.

And that is it! I know the steps seem overwhelming, but once you get the hang of it, it is SUPER EASY. I saved a blank template so I wouldn't have to keep creating a new one every time. 

If watching and listening is easier for you, here is a screencast of me making my slides. 

I hope this tutorial has helped you learn how to create your own slides for your Lightbox. You can check out my GROWING BUNDLE of Lightbox Slides on TpT by clicking HERE on on the picture below.

Please email me at livelaughlovesecond@gmail.com if you have any questions. Have fun creating!

Monday Made It!

Has another week of summer already flown by??? How can it be??? I go back to work in 5 1/2 weeks, so I need to make the most of it! Of course, that means getting down to some serious "stuff" makin'. And who better to link up with than Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for her weekly Monday Made It link up? You can click the button below to head over and check out more fantastic ideas!

Probably one of the most fun things I've made this past week has been slides for my new Heidi Swapp Lightbox. Once I figured out the template, inserting the pictures I was making and cropping them to fit each slide was pretty easy. My head is currently exploding with ideas for slides in my classroom. 

I uploaded a growing bundle of Lightbox slides to my TpT store. It's 50% off for this week only, and designs will continue to be added until it is full! You can check it out by clicking HERE or clicking on the picture below.

You can also download this cute freebie that can be used for the days of the week. It's a pretty simple design, but it looks super cute on the Lightbox. Click HERE to download it or click on the picture below.

I plan on doing a more in-depth blog post on how I make my slides, so check back!

I had seen the pictures of the ABC Kraft Mac & Cheese floating around Instagram, so when I saw them at Walmart, I decided to pick up a box to use for my 3 year old. The letters were a lot small than I thought they would be, and I knew she would have a hard time manipulating them. So, I tried to come up with a way to use them in my classroom. I had my teenagers sort them into vowels and consonants for me, and then decided to dye them red and blue-like the magnet letters we have in the classroom. 

I used a 1/2 cup rubbing alcohol and SEVERAL drops of food coloring.  I did mix the food coloring and alcohol together before pouring it in the bag. I read somewhere that it helps distribute the color more evenly (because you know...second graders totally care about that!). About every 30 minutes I would flip the bags, and after about 2 hours I poured the liquid out and put the pasta on a cooling rack to dry. They came out so vibrant and nice!

I plan on using them as part of our spelling station this year. The kids will love them!

I love using community supplies in the classroom. I know a lot of teachers (and parents!) don't prefer it, but it saves SO MUCH TIME. Over the years, I have accumulated more than a class set of scissors. That is what went in the community supplies at each table. If the kids brought their own scissors, they kept them in their personal pencil boxes. But...I started to notice that scissors from the community bucket would *disappear*. I really didn't have a way to hold tables accountable for their supplies because all the scissors were mixed up. 

Until...I saw this Instagram post from Carolyn at A Primary Kind of Life. Her scissors match her table bins! Come on, Lori!!! Duh!!! What a great way to hold my tables accountable! If I gave each pod their own color, they couldn't accuse another table of stealing their scissors. I had enough scissors in my personal collection to give 4 tables their own colors. Two tables will have share red scissors. Bummer for them.

So...where is the "Made It" in this, you ask? Well, I added silver duct tape to the handles to mark them as "Property of Mrs. McCoy" because it is HARD to peel it off. Sure, washi tape would've looked prettier, but they can peel that stuff off pretty fast. We'll see if the scissors stay put a little bit better this year! (Oh! I made the handy label on my supply bucket, too. All my overflow supplies have their own buckets int he cabinet like this.)

This is a more personal made it, but isn't it cute??? I made it using my Silhouette Cameo. Can't wait to put it on my girl.

It's the first day of summer, and I hope you find a great way to enjoy it! See you next time!