Printing a Poster... the Cheapskate Way!

I am a sucker for handmade posters in my classroom. From inspirational quotes to anchor charts for ELA and math, my room is full of them!

Some of them I hand drew on poster board or the big Post-It chart paper (obsessed with that stuff!! Every two years, I budget some of my $$ for a pad and then I savor it for the next two years, using it for only the most special of projects!!). But, anymore, most of posters are designed on Photoshop (I use Elements 7).

In a perfect world, money would be no object and I'd have all my posters printed from Staples or Shutterfly, but sadly, money is just something that I never seem to have enough of, so I needed to figure out a way to print my snazzy creations on the cheap!

Enter Microsoft Publisher. It's sorta like the fourth cousin, twice removed from its more famous family members: Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, but this little gem is hands-down my favorite! Before I learned Photoshop, it was my go-to for designing posters, worksheets, templates, and activities.

Anyway, lots of people use Publisher for banners, but you can print great posters, as well. And, as long as you like puzzles, it's a snap to do!

First, design or find a high-resolution jpeg. If it's not high-quality, it will pixelate when you blow it up. Then, save it to your computer.

Now, open Publisher:

Next:

And you will have:

Then:

Finally:

It will print out on several sheets of paper. You will then have to trim them and carefully piece them together (like a puzzle). You can tape them to a large piece of poster board or just tape them to each other. I highly recommend laminating them (or clear contact paper them, or even frame them), but you don't have to! And voila! A beautiful poster that you made for a tiny bit of ink and some copy paper!

Here's a few from my room this year (don't mind the glare or the terrible camera phone pictures!):

Here is a close up so you can see the seams where I pieced the pages together:

(It's not even visible when the poster is hanging!)

So, there you go! A cheapy way to make beautiful posters for your classroom. Any other easy and inexpensive ways you make posters?

Happy teaching!!

P.S. If you are interested, I do sell the motivational posters pictured in this post in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store. What you would actually purchase is a high-res (8.5" X 11", 300 dpi) jpeg that you can print at an office supply store or a print shop... OR PRINT IT THE CHEAPSKATE WAY!!

• Pay Attention (pink frame)
• Listen (orange frame)
• Joining In (yellow frame)
• Great Accomplishments (purple frame)
• Getting What You Want (turquoise frame)
• Be Kind (green frame)

P.P.S. Again, if you are interested, I do sell the literary elements posters pictured in this post in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Same deal as above: you would actually purchase is a high-res (8.5" X 11", 300 dpi) jpeg that you can print at an office supply store or a print shop... OR PRINT IT THE CHEAPSKATE WAY!!

• Plot Elements
• Story Elements
• Characters
• Mood and Tone
• Point of View
• Theme
• Quote, Summarize, Paraphrase (useful for text analysis)