Back to school time is upon us, it’s hard to believe its here. To get ready for back to school, I am creating this owl sign for my son on his first day. This first day of school sign will be so fun for pictures.

Every year I am going to try and create something different for him to use.

My son loves owls and books so I am going to make it like Professor Hootsburgh (I think thats the characters name) from DocMcStuffins. I am creating everything for the sign using my Cricut Explore and paper and vinyl, but if you don’t have a Cricut here are some ideas you can use to decorate an owl back to school sign. I found the wooden owl at Wal Mart for about $2.
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Ideas to Make a First Day of School Sign:
Chalkboard Markers
Alphabet Stickers
Paint
Stencils
Vinyl
Paper
Mod Podge
Stickers/Embellishments

Then I painted the owl purple. For some reason my son wants a purple owl, purple crayon box, purple folder, but it’s not his favorite color, it’s mine. I think it just gives him comfort and makes him happy.

Now this project was a learning experience and honestly I went back and changed some of it as I was writing this post because I just didn’t like it. Anyone who creates knows sometimes a vision in your head doesn’t always come out right the first time. Most of the time it does, but this owl gave me trouble today. The end product was worth it.

On the sign I am going to put my sons name, name of school, date of the first day of school, and what he wants to be when he grows up. Everything I used is availble in Cricut Access Premium.

I’m using a variety of fonts and colors for the owl. To create the owls eyes I used 2 different size circles. First I cut out all the pieces and lay them on the owl to make sure all the sizes are correct.

Then I transferred the book and the crayon first because I’m going to put my son’s information in the middle of them. I put my son’s age on the cover of the book. I also let him pick the color for the crayon and the book since the sign is for him.

Then I did the eyes and the glasses. I layered the circles inside the glasses and then I transferred the pieces all together using transfer tape. Then I made a triangle out of orange vinyl for the owl’s beak and placed it between the glasses.

Then I made triangles out of paper for the ears that says I love school. I used Mod Podge to apply the paper triangles to the owl’s ears.

From taking this picture I realized the green vinyl was not going to work for the school name, it was just to hard to read. So I took it off and started again and used red vinyl and a different font. Now it’s starting to look good. Then I added the first day of school in black vinyl. I also added different colored stars in vinyl between my son’s name and school.

I went back and made a few changes because I didn’t like the way the a looked in my son’s name and the I want to be when I grow up part. I’m so picky. I just kept looking at the sign thinking something wasn’t right.

Here is my son’s name in the new font. When I added my son’s name I also rearranged the stars a little bit to.

My son is so excited for the first day and he loves his sign. It will be a “Hoot” of a school year!

Happy Back to School!