First Day Of School Sign Tutorial

School is back in full session and I wanted to share with you guys a little tutorial for creating a cool “first day” school sign.

I cannot believe the school year has started already! Georgia starts early. Like too early. The beginning of August is really not a good idea for kids to be heading back to school. I mean, c’mon! Summer is still going strong and many schools do not implement enough physical activity that most children require. I know I may be treading on dangerous territory here ….. BUT….. I have to say it. Cutting their summers short in the name of shoving more academia down kids throats is not [necessarily] in the best interests of these children. They NEED a full 3 months of Summer- To enjoy liberating and non-structured days to regroup for the highly-stressful, demanding, and very little spare time during the remaining [should be] 9 months of the year.

How many of you remember once upon a time school didn’t begin until *after* Labor Day? Maybe it still does in some regions but not here in Georgia. I remember having the full months of June, July, AND August free from school-related activity. Those were the days!

And need we be reminded we are only kids once. ONCE!

Yeah? Amiright??! Who’s with me? In case you didn’t pick up on it…… {wink, wink}, I’m TEAM SUMMER!!! Whoopee!!! Okay, now that I got that off my chest………

I wanted to share with you, my friends a little project that I’ve started to do at the beginning of each school year- Making 1st-day-of-school signs for my kids to ~~happily~~ hold up for their first day back to school pictures that I take every year since they’ve started school.

Oh, and please excuse some of the photos…. grainy, a bit blurry, and/or poor quality are in play. Always aspiring to improve my skills but sometimes even with decent edits, the photo still is lacking in perfection. Many were taken with my phone so we all know how phone camera quality is!

Really though, my kids don’t mind. Most of the time. We all have our bad days mixed in with the good, if we are honest to admit. Actually, since my little princess started preschool I’ve been snapping a daily shot of both my kids for each school day. If you follow me on Instagram, you will see that I post a daily photo of the kids at the bus stop just to memorialize the day in their school years. I also like to switch up their outfits to showcase everyday kids fashion. They rarely wear the same outfit throughout the entire school year.

Here is last years’ conglomeration of bus stop pictures:

This was actually last years’ 1st day of school project but took me an entire year before I could get this post together ~ Uh, yeah, I’ve [reluctantly] accepted that this is how I roll…… years behind everyone else. Better late than NEVER has become my motto.

Tutorial

First: Gather all your supplies.

Scrapbook papers, cardstock (any light color – I used a cream colored one), and regular copy paper
Canvas rectangles (I used 11×14 panels)
Glue
Pencil (to trace)
Scissors
Craft paint
Assorted artist paintbrushes
Letter and/or number stickers (if not using a painted cutout, like I did)

Now, we are ready to get started:

Choose your theme colors to go with your child’s outfit. Now, this is totally optional but adds a nice touch. I played around with different patterns, colors, designs before I got my final idea.

Using a piece of copy paper, trace the frame.

After you’ve traced your frame, put the cardstock paper on top of the traced frame and trace the final shape to cut out.

Next, choose your scrapbook papers:

Use your imagination here. I decided to have a large background piece and 2 thin contrasting, complementary strips for the edges…

Lay the bigger piece where it will be on the canvas then take your contrasting scrap paper and follow as shown in picture below:

Here’s what it looks like before applying the cardstock inner frame:

This is what you should have so far, before you write or apply stickers:

Cream colored cardstock cutout frame

I decided to use stickers since it was easiest and I had time restraints ( I did this project the day before they started school; Yes, I always love pushing things til the very last minute for some reason) but you could write/paint in the words instead. I will say, even with stickers, it was kind of tricky to get everything proportionate in the frame. It helped to draw (very) faint lines with a pencil which I erased after everything was done.

Freehand painted number cutouts

So, there you have it. My twist on all those popular “First Day Of School” signs. Okay, let’s keep you here just a tad longer and give you a few more shots of the kiddos sporting these signs!