While visiting the office.microsoft.com templates page the other day, noticing their current selection of free Valentine templates, I re-discovered this funny little Valentine that I created while contracting there, and wanted to say a few words about this versatile Valenttine's Day Countdown Calendar which was created as something to be enjoyed in either printed format or in PowerPoint.
The opening screen (or front of the card) of this Valentine features 14 numbered doors with cupids delivering love letters through the mail. What the doors reveal is totally up to you. While the download file has already been preset with images and text - you can easily change these. (The first image below shows the doors - and the second image shows a couple of doors still closed but others revealing images and text).
I haven't had a chance to explore this myself, but I think it would be fabulous to do a version on actual paper. Basically, you would print screen the scene with closed doors, and then print screen the scene with all items revealed. On just the front image, cut in such a way that the doors would swing open. And again, you can customize the back image to contain your own text, images, photographs, etc. Glue the two pieces together around the frame of the doors - and you've got a cool interactive Valentine! (The image below is a mock-up of how this might appear, doors ajar):
If you want to do use this digitally on PowerPoint, this help article (How to create a personalized Advent calendar), while it actually discusses a similar type of PowerPoint template, (an Animated Advent Calendar I had created for Christmas), the basics hold true for updating this Valentine.
Okay, so if you haven't figured it out by now, Bindlegrim is obsessed with the holidays, but, perhaps begrudgingly, even he has to admit there are a million interesting (non-holiday) worlds to discover here on earth's little corner of the universe.
So if you enjoyed the Christmas and Halloween coloring books you might also enjoy these eight page coloring books featuring animals from the forest, the farm, and even aquatic animals).
This is free content from office.microsoft.com that I had the joy, while on contract, to create from their clip-art library as downloadable content in the permanent template library. (The result of this blissful project was 5 coloring books taking advantage of one particularly great style of art: #1450).
And, speaking of great style, if you want some fun color-minded music to enjoy while you break out the crayons --- have you ever heard this wonderful mix of poetry and jazz from 1967 called Colors by Ken Nordine???
Did that get you in the mood to color? Below are thumbnail galleries of the three coloring books for your perusal - and be sure to visit the office.microsoft website for the full size downloads.
Of course Bindlegrim can't let a blog entry end without mentioning the holidays a couple of times, and if you are reading this entry around Halloween or Christmas, check out additional 8 page coloring books for those festive occasions:
As a side note - part of the beauty of templates and of Word 2007 is the ability to customize to suit your own tastes. If you didn't catch my original blog entry (on the Microsoft Office blog) that explained the above procedure (creating Word art from the Clip Art library) -- I have recreated the content in this blog entry here.
While it's cold here in Colorado as December rolls around... (and I imagine Santa is busy making toys up at the North Pole) - we forget here that sometimes Santa just needs a holiday - or as noted to our team back when I was contracting at office.microsoft.com - yes, Christmas does happens during the summer in some parts of the world...! And so, in an effort to show Santa in warmer climes, I went to work on a summer-inspired set of Christmas stationery.
Download the entire set for free and customize in both color and content. (Note - these were items created while working with the Microsoft Office extensive library of free clip-art... to create content for the free download template library). For this project the goal was to highlight Word 2007's ability to create themes that allows you change color palettes at the touch of a button. And was constructed from items available in their free MS Clip Art Library particularly: MS Clip Art - Style 1450.
If you are interest in using using clip art in this manner, you might study this earlier post that offers an instructional blog entry. And for more holiday-themed downloads (for both Halloween and Christmas) that are free from Microsoft, by designer Robert Aaron Wiley, please check out the Bindlegrim website for Free Stuff!
Continuing the last post of fun holiday content I was fortunate to create during my contract job at office.microsoft.com. I also wanted to share this seasonal design set of stationery items for Halloween that you can download for free and customize in both color and content. (Note - these were items created while working with the Microsoft Office extensive library of free clip-art... to create content for the free download template library).
For this project the goal was to highlight Word 2007's ability to create themes that allows you change color palettes at the touch of a button. And was constructed from items available in their free MS Clip Art Library particularly: MS Clip Art - Style 1450.
If you are interest in using using clip art in this manner, you might study the previous post that offers an instructional blog entry. And for more holiday-themed downloads (for both Halloween and Christmas) that are free from Microsoft, by designer Robert Aaron Wiley, please check out the Bindlegrim website for Free Stuff!
One of the awesome perks of my contract job at office.microsoft.com was getting to work with their extensive clip-art library... and getting to create content for any gaps that might have been occurring in their free download template library... and of course it was a real thrill to create some fun holiday fare for Halloween, Christmas, etc...
One really fun project was to create five download sheets that children could color. Well, to their pleasant surprise, well within the time frame given, I went a little overboard, and actually created five coloring books each with a theme and about five-eight pages in each download. There are three with animals: (forest, farm, aquatic) (P.S. looks like the older Word 2007 versions were dropped for upgraded versions in Word 2013) and then, of course, a Halloween (in an updated Word 2007, or newer Word 2013) and a Christmas coloring book (also in an updated Word 2007, or newer Word 2013). (Links updated 9-16-2013: I am guessing these new versions offer improvements though sadly for me they don't reflect the large number of downloads these received the past few years...)
Since it's that time of year here are thumbnail versions of the Halloween coloring book for your perusal - and be sure to visit the office.microsoft website for the full large size Halloween coloring book (in an updated Word 2007, or newer Word 2013) download:
As a side note - part of the beauty of templates and of Word 2007 is the ability to customize to suit your own tastes. If you didn't catch my original blog entry (on the Microsoft Office blog) that explained the above procedure (creating Word art from the Clip Art library) -- I have recreated the content here:
Customize your Clip Art with Word 2007
Background and ideas:
A previous blog entry discusses Word 2007’s ability to turn downloaded clip art into editable content. Building on this idea exponentially extends Office Online Clip Art library content. Grouped and stylized to your own devices, clip art customizes to fit business document color-schemes, or arranges and overlaps within animation storyboards, and on and on.
Again, some good styles (with uncomplicated line and shape) are #1450, #1434, or #1255. Much of Style #1450 appears in the following templates (see above): Aquatic animals, Farm animals, Forest animals, Christmas, and Halloween. And has founds its way into Word stationery themes for the Summer Santa and the Halloween correspondence set.
For this example, here is one page from the Farm animals coloring book:
The scene:
Flowers
A tree
And various shapes drawn in Word
The cast:
One frog
Two frog!
A boisterous fowl
And 1 awed snail
The video below reviews Word 2007 methods for separating vector clip art. It then shows regrouping, copying, and arranging shapes one in front of another:
Review of these steps:
Import clip art into a new Word 2007 document.
Right click on your selected clip. Choose to Edit Picture, and this will show the image highlighted inside a dotted-line bounding box.
Click and drag the mouse inside this box from one corner to the other to capture the most pieces of the art initially possible.
On the Ribbon Format tab, change the Shape fill to White, and the Line color to Black.
This will reveal shapes in the art you might have missed. Keeping all your original shapes selected, Control-click to gather any of the remaining shapes.
Repeat step 4-5 until you’ve gathered all the visible shapes.
With all shapes still selected, right click Grouping - Group.
Copy or Cut your grouped image outside of the bounding box. Delete the bounding box and unwanted images inside of it. (Note: a stray bounding box can cause headaches by pushing around other objects).
Optional: Right click to Ungroup your art, and re-group it into smaller sets. (Note: Overlapping objects may take practice. Lost objects may have gone behind a larger one. Be prepared to backtrack).
You can now arrange your art within the overall document Use the Format tab in the Ribbon to Arrange shapes/groups with Bring to Front, Send Backward, etc.
Final suggestions:
Have fun! Play with Word 2007 styles to create text, color variation, stage placement, or texture and photographic elements.
