Have you ever wondered how to make those cute oversized clip art pictures that people have up on the doors, in their hallway displays and on their bulletin boards? If you thought you HAD to be able to draw to make them, this post is for YOU! This is the easy way to make those fun characters. All you need is a picture that you like, a printer, a transparency and an overhead projector.
Step One: Find a picture that you like and print it onto a transparency. Make sure that you do not make the image too large as you will have to project it onto a piece of bulletin board paper. If it begins too big, you might not be able to get it the size you want it.
Step Two: Get out a large piece of bulletin board paper that is the color of the image. For example, since I am creating a polar bear today, I took out white bulletin board paper. You want to choose the color that is used MOST in your image. (That way you don’t have to cut out too many accent pieces later on in the process!)
Step Three: Hang this paper up as you are going to project the image onto it. I personally like to project it onto my white board because I can attach the bulletin board paper to the white board with magnets and then I don’t have to staple the paper on the wall and have to take the staples out of the wall when I am finished.
Step Four: Project your image onto a wall and paper. (Notice in the picture below I used my magnets to hold up the white paper.) Make sure the image is the size you want!
*DO NOT MOVE YOUR OVERHEAD FROM THIS POINT ON!!!!!*
(If you do, the image will be nearly impossible to get back to the original size… again, I have learned this from experience!!!)
Step Five: Trace your image. I use a big, bold, black marker. (You’ll think I’m crazy but honestly a brand new Expo Marker is fantastic for this!) — If you are tracing onto a dry erase board it makes for easy clean up if any of the marker bleeds through, too!
Step Six: Now that you have traced your entire image, you need to create the accent pieces. For this you will need construction paper. I wanted my polar bear to have pink inside his ears, so I took out the pink and placed it right on top of his ear with magnets. I then traced each part of him that would be pink. (You’ll notice I also traced, cut and pasted on his black nose below!)
Step Seven: Cut out your accents and glue them where they would go. Now, it will NOT always be a perfect fit– don’t worry!! Look below, the insert does NOT fit perfectly. This is where your black marker comes in handy! It can fix nearly anything!! Trust me, I have been making these for 9 years! All you have to do is color in the area that is not perfect with black and there you go! No one will ever know there was a mistake!!
I always trace over the inserts one more time with my black marker and then send the whole thing through the laminator!
Final Step: Cut, laminate, and hang up!
Easier than you thought, right?! Happy creating!! 🙂
Kristen
*The Polar Bear can be purchased from Scrappin Doodles!*
Love it, a teacher at my school was throwing away the overhead. “Who needs it I have a smartboard!” she told me.
I grabbed it and began doing this. She told me that she should have never given it away. hahaha
Thanks for the post.
iteachkidsabc@gmail.com
:o) V.
Special Teacher for Special Kids
Adorable!!!
Awesome tutorial!
❀Barbara❀
Grade ONEderful
Ruby Slippers Blog Designs
I miss having an overhead for this reason! Can’t find one at my new school but I used to love being able to do this. Great post!!
❤ -Stephanie
Falling Into First
I love this!
~Fern
Fern Smith’s Classroom Ideas!
Fern Smith’s Pinterest Boards!
These remind me of the good ole’ days when my mom taught! She used to do that! Everything eventually comes back! Cute board!!
Megan
Mrs. Wheeler’s First Grade
Mrs. Wheeler TpT
🙂 He is a cutie and what a great tutorial. Completely forgot about the good old way of tracing images 🙂
Heidi
My (Not So) Elementary Life
That’s exactly how I make my big displays too! I can’t do it any other way. I actually have my own overhead at home! Your display is too cute! I just love it!
Ѽ Lori
Teaching With Love and Laughter
luvyorkies@gmail.com
Your bear is just too cute!! I still have my projector just for this reason (and I don’t believe in throwing any classroom thing out….yes, I’m a teacher hoarder as long as it fits in my room HAHA) 😉
ღDeAnne
First Grade and Fabulous
Your board turned out to be sooo cute! Great job!
Thanks for sharing…
If you have time, stop by my blog and enter the giveaway!
Thanks,
Brigid
Brigid’s Daily Lesson Log
You can also do this if you have a smartboard and an Elmo in your room. Just tape the large butcher paper onto your smartboard and put the picture under the Elmo. You can adjust the size by zooming in or out on your Elmo. Then, all you need to do is trace the image as noted in the post above!
Teachin’ First
I have done the same thing using my computer. I save the image in PowerPoint and then I just enlarge the image. If I need it to be bigger thsn my board – I just scroll and adjust the paper on the board. Since the picture size doesn’t change – it is a very easy adjustment.
Your blog is great.