You can be excellent word art

I am working on a little project for my kids' bathroom. I thought I would share a png file of the word art I created. This is designed to be a 4x6 aspect ratio. You can change up the colors of the background and text any way you want. Here is how you do it.

1. Open png File
You should have a transparent background. That's what the grey and white checkers mean.

2. Make a New Layer
Go to file > Layer > New > Layer. Or on my version I just type Ctrl + Shift + N to get a new layer. Once you have your layer, drag it to the bottom in your layers pallet.

3. Choose Background Color
Click on the color icon on your tool pallet and from there you can select a color, or use the eye dropper tool to pick a color from a photo, or scrapbook paper.

4. Use Paint Bucket to add background color
Make sure you have the correct layer selected (the bottom one) and click to "paint" the background with the paint bucket tool.

5. Make a New Layer Above the png file
Make a new layer that will become the color of the png (or in our case the text). I chose white. Use the paint bucket tool to make the whole layer white. You can't see the text underneath, but that's okay. In the next step you will make the magic happen!

6. Type Ctrl + G
Make sure that you have the top layer selected and that the two layers are next to each other on the layers pallet. Hold down the Ctrl key and the "G" at the same time. This make a clipping mask. You can do this with solid colors, like we did here, patterns, or even photos. This is one of my favorite tricks in Photoshop.

So here is a link to download the png file so that you can customize your own. You could even do a chalkboard looking background and make it look like chalk art. I plan on putting this up in our bathroom right in front of the toilet so that my kids can read it while they are sitting captive for a few moments during the day. I am working on making a whole collage of word arts for this purpose. I hope to show you when it is all done! Check back for more downloads.

Click to download full res png

Free Printable: Gordon B. Hinkley's 9 be's

When I was a student at BYU, I had the opportunity to listen to an incredible talk given by President Hinkley. At the time he gave 6 be's to live by:

Be Grateful

Be Smart

Be Clean

Be True

Be Humble

Be Prayerful

Since that time he added 3 additional be's:

Be Positive

Be Involved

Be Still

I originally created this subway art to print and give to the girls in my Activity Days group. We played pictionary using the words of the be's. It was challenging, but a lot of fun for the girls. Then we read the talk out loud together. When we gave each girl a copy of the art we challenged them to hang it up in rooms and to choose one "be" to work on each week. It has been fun to follow up with the girls on how they are doing with the challenge. It was a simple, but great activity!

I have created a subway word art using all 9 be's. Feel free to share these links on Pinterest or any other way you like. Just please refer them to my blog. Thanks!

Click on the captions below the images to download.

Link for Download

Link for Download