DIY Lilly Desktop Wallpaper

Hey y'all! I can't wait to stomp into spring and am in love with Lilly Spring 2014!  When I saw the print Lobstah Roll, I instantly loved it and just knew I had to do something with it.  With Spring semester in full swing, exams are getting closer and closer and organization is more important than ever.

I always have a Lilly print as my desktop wallpaper, which makes it look cute, but sometimes it's still very cluttered.  Using Microsoft Power Point, I was able to create a customized way to organize my desktop and get it ready for spring at the same time.

I started by simply inserting the print into a blank Power Point document.  I get a lot of my wallpapers from Pulitzer Prints and found this one there as well.

I then resized the image to make it larger.  It's okay if you go outside of the boundaries of the typical slide on this one, and desktop backgrounds generally need a high resolution, so leaving it large is probably a good idea.  I also center and middle aligned the image, just to keep things lined up.

I then started making the categories for my icons.  Everybody will have different categories, but they are all created the same way.  I inserted a text box and changed the fill and outline to match my print.  I then choose one of my favorite fonts to type the category in.

After that, I copied the text box a few times and changed the category name.  I then arranged them in an array, leaving some extra space on the right side.

Since I'm creating this wallpaper for a computer I share with my sisters, I personalized the "Personal Folders" section with our monograms (because would it really be a Melissa Bergey project had I not monogrammed something?).  I did this by adding three new text boxes and typing our monograms in them.  If you're looking for a good, free monogram font, download the one here!

Finally, since exam season and the time preceding it can be so stressful, I added a Bible verse as an uplifting reminder.

To finalize my wallpaper, I grouped all the text boxes together.

I center and middle aligned them, then grouped them with the main image, the Lilly print.

Once everything was grouped, I right-clicked the image and save it as a picture.  Remember to save your image as a JPEG because Power Point usually saves as .png, and Windows won't let you upload these files as a wallpaper.  I set the configuration to "Stretch" when I changed the wallpaper and turned off the "Auto Arrange" feature on my desktop by right-clicking.  I also turned on the "Align to Grid" feature to keep my icons lined up.  I then moved my icons to their respective categories.

My desktop is now organized, with the added bonus of a cute Lilly wallpaper!  I saved the Power Point slide I was working with as a presentation too, so I can edit the categories or print any time I want.  Hope y'all enjoy this as much as I did, and I'd love to see what you can come up with!