Adding a watermark to your card and other shares - the FancyNancy way :)

Someone asked how I added watermarks to my scrapbook kits, card and scrapbook page shares, and as I shared it on another group, I thought perhaps some of you might want to know!

So, here's how I do it:
Launch PowerPoint
Insert> Word Art, Selecting a white/gray combo style
Type what you want it to say, then, change the font to what you want, and hit OK
Save the PPT file (where you will be able to always get to it easily) as your working copy of your watermark, since the SU copyright date changes yearly to include the coming year, for example, I just updated mine to read "All images©Stampin' Up! 1990-2011" - this way, you can still come back and change it without recreating it each year.
Click on the WordArt piece so that the lines around it appear, then RIGHT CLICK and select SAVE AS PICTURE
Navigate to your desktop or other handy location, save it as something you can find there
(You only have to do all this above ONCE, except when you change the date or your name, then you go back to the original PPT file, fix it, save the PPT, right click and save the WordArt as a picture and go)

To add it to a picture, I launch PowerPoint, go to INSERT>PICTURE>FROM FILE
Find the snapshot of the card or layout you want to share and insert it
Then, go to INSERT>PICTURE>FROM FILE and find your watermark and add it (doing it in this order automatically puts the watermark on a layer in front of the card share as it builds from bottom to top, like MDS does).
Select both the watermark and the picture by holding down SHIFT and click on the picture, click on the watermark
Then right click and select GROUP>GROUP
Then right click and select SAVE AS PICTURE

Once you have done this once or twice, it is so easy to do, and if your computer came with Microsoft Office on it like mine, it costs you not a cent to do!

You could also do this in MDS with similar steps, except that PPT is the only one I know with the option to group various objects and right click to SAVE AS PICTURE, which is pretty fast to do....

You can also insert MDS created pictures that you've saved as JPGs to share in there to watermark....

Just one thought on watermarking - what has worked for me for years... if you have questions when you try it, email me - I am back at school already - (yeah, hurrah, but I really am grateful for my job, even though this educator got no summer, lol)

And even though the 'stros lost last night, we STILL won the series against the Cards -

GO ASTROS!
:)n

We have wedding pictures - FINALLY!!!!! It has been an unbelievable pain in the..um.....PITA - yeah... to get these pictures. Bo finally had to drive to the Convention Center downtown where he was to call the guy and he'd come out and meet him with the CD. He called and got the guy's voicemail the first 5 times, finally, the 6th time Bo called in the half hour he waited on his last day of holiday before school starts back, FINALLY, he answered and came out with the CD. The pictures are great, however, I was saddened that once they got all our money, the service stopped...

I also have to say, his wife does a good job with the make-up, but they *own* the shop - and she kept ASKING my daughter for tips in such a way that Kari felt she had to tip her....

Good pictures, pitiful service...nuff said.

Focus on the good - focus on the good - focus on the good:
The pictures are really GREAT!

It's a God thing...

I am SO excited....it is just totally a wonderful thing!

You know, educators as a rule are grossly underpaid.

Now, you may disagree here - but it's my blog, and my opinion....and, of course, as my friend Cyndi says - opinions are like belly buttons - we all got 'em (well, except for this little boy named Freddie that I taught one year, but I digress)...

I got a raise this year....everyone did...but I calculated mine out...

and

like God does...
you know the verse
"good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over" (Luke 6:38)

my raise is more than twice what I prayed for...

that's God for ya!

I don't deserve it - I mean - I work hard - everyone in my profession does - we take work home, we stay late working (teachers/educators do not get paid overtime) we obsess over making appropriate recommendations for the kids we evaluate as diagnosticians - I mean, after all - these are LIFE-AFFECTING decisions we make - there are NO do-overs, no UNDELETE button, no UNDO key combo (CTRL+Z on the computer, if you didn't know), no REWIND - you screw up with a kid, you can't get that time back....you can't unaffect them (if that's a word) - but I don't deserve it more than anyone else does....honest!

But I appreciate it... BOY, do I appreciate it!


It just reminds me - that's how God works...God's system is GRACE (God's riches at Christ's expense...) - for me! The unmerited favor of God - and I so totally do not deserve it!

It's just, well....a God thing!

i hate making people cry

- I made two moms cry today - I didn't mean to - I was doing my job - I can't break the law.......even if they cry....

but man


I


hate


making


people


cry...


however - they both have the power to change their situation - I hope that they will take the steps they need to do so!

Now, in other news - the Astros beat the Cards again tonight - Go 'Stros!!!!!

I love Saturday!

WOW - have *I* been bad or what! It's been days - almost WEEKS since I last was here...hmmm, wonder if school starting could have anything to do with that!

I got my office moved back to my old school (hurrah!) and have already had 3 IEP meetings... yep, hit the decks running.... And the other diags have all already had more of those than I have (but they didn't have 3 and 4 year olds to test, come to think of it, lol - I *love* the little ones!!!).

sorry - Garrett (SIL2B) just dropped off keys to Bo's truck...

I'm fixing to work on some stamping and some prom scrapbook pages for a gal. Since my blog is largely undiscovered, lol, I'll share some of the stamping in a bit...can't share the prom pics as they aren't my kids :) Gotta make my future SIL a birthday card - tomorrow's his day! Hope Bo remembers he's supposed to get him something while he's out....hate to call him *again* as he is getting certain personal products for his cranky wife...and likely needs a break from her (me)...

I called him...walked out into the garage to check and see how many diet cokes there were at *his* request - don't you love a man who SHOPS...he also COOKS, VACUUMS, PUTS GAS IN MY CAR *and* he remembered that I was almost out of Diet Coke! I know...I know - I am SO spoiled...but I digress...the garage door was up and I thought G had left it that way...I turn around and Bo is talking to me on the phone and is *right behind me* - nearly scared the peewadoodling out of me, lol...

back in a minute...now the laundry is calling....

ok - I now have clean undies put away for the next week or two or three...I hate doing laundry, but gotta have clean undies!!!!!

well, *now* it's the phone....I give up....maybe I'll catch ya later!

ah...i love my job

Alarm went off at 4:20 yesterday and today. See, my hubby has this thing about me being TOTALLY awake before I head out of town on 290 to Waller... go figure. Guess he loves me or something, lol!

So, my alarm goes off - don't remember if I've mentioned, but I'm pretty hearing impaired...I have an estimated 75% loss in left ear and 70% in right ear...so without my bionic ears {well, ok - hearing aids} - you may as well not bother talking to me! Anyway - my alarm goes off - this wonderful invention called The Sonic Boom (hearingsystemsinc.com) - it has what is called a bed shaker [get your mind out of the gutter, would ya?] - a disk about 4 inches across and an inch or so thick that fits under the mattress and literally shakes the bed (think small earthquake :)....meanwhile, the light flashes and the alarm sounds - it is pitch adjustable so I have it set to a pitch I can hear if I am not laying on my left ear (for some reason I discriminate sound better on the left - have to do with being left-handed? I wonder...). I hit snooze ONCE yesterday - a couple of times today....hopped in the shower, then dressed and went and made my morning double latte (only Starbucks coffee goes in my espresso machine ;). By the time the latte is made and I sit down and check my email (I am on some very high-volume groups with other chatty crafters!)...i manage to wake up enough to go dry my hair and apply some make-up - then hit the road. I was so proud - managed to be the FIRST one at Special Services yesterday, and at my campus today (go, me!). Hope I can keep up the trend of being EARLY for work...If I leave on time (normally that will be 7:15-7:20), that will be great!

Anyway - after visiting both my campuses yesterday and finding neither principal there...I was told at BOTH campuses that my office (from last year) had been given to someone else (hello? testing kids...where? holding IEP meetings...where??? keeping confidential student records....WHERE??????). I was royally POed when I headed home yesterday - blessedly it was massage day (that's another story)...so I was in decent enough mood when Bo got home from church - I was running late and got home after church had already started...

So...this morning, get to my (new) main campus - well, new OLD main campus - I used to be counselor there and they like me for some odd reason...at 6:45....finally, around 8:00 heard other signs of life, and about 8:30, my principal arrived from having a conference with Transportation...and we talked. I'm no longer office-less - but I did get to be the one to call my speech path and tell him he couldn't have my office....however, since he's a good guy (most of the time :), he approved of where I had recommended he be moved, since they took over his room for a mini computer lab....I told him he could have either one - my office or the other larger room with the WINDOW (wish I had a window!) and built-in bookshelves and cabinets! It all worked out - God has a way of doing that....but my stress level last night - well, let's just say there was a great reason why I didn't post then!

Have a good one - be a good one!

Back to work!

OK, so there's good news and bad news...I *thought* I had to go back to work last Monday (the 6th) - GOOD NEWS - not til Wednesday (the 8th)......BUT (didn't you hear that coming???) I have to be there at 7 in the morning - I am SO not a morning person!!!!!

So, right now, when I finish today's blog, I'm going to finish packaging a wish gift for someone on one of my groups, then work on the maps for Kari's wedding invitations, watch the Astros (we won last night, Go 'Stros!), and hit the sack early! Oh, and I need to repack my work cart so I can actually LIFT it into and out of my car, lol! Right now it holds the stuff from all my summer workshops, plus the office supplies I bought to replenish my school stash, and such...I think I'll have to have an extra box to get it all there tomorrow...

I found out that I will now have an additional campus. My boss is super and assured me that if my testing becomes overwhelming that she'll secure reinforcements for me (I do all the preschool and all the bilingual assessments for my district - since I have little or no control over these things, I could have a dozen due in one week, or one due in a dozen weeks, KWIM???). Good news of this, though, is that this is really a TINY change for me, because the campus added to my caseload is my original campus - they know me there, and most days, LIKE me, lol!

SO, not sure what my schedule looks like, but if it is like in the past, I'll have some control over that, and can decide where I need to spend time and when...since I do all the bilingual assessments, that means I hit all the campuses at some point more or less...

Still praying about Bo's work - he did the alternative certification for teaching and passed his tests with flying colors - now just to find a job - our little church is really struggling and he needs to go bivocational at least for a time to help out.... some people are having a hard time with this and the rumours are flying, but, I can't help that. People will gossip and stretch the truth until it no longer resembles itself! The truth really is (in case you care) - we have no intentions of leaving our church at this point - God has not given us permission to do so yet...so we are in it until we know we have to go!