The hardest thing about the first day of school is trying to get back into the routine of waking up early, making sure everyone is also up on time, dressed, groomed, have breakfast and make a mad dash to the door in a reasonable amount of time without going insane in order to take those perfect outdoor “Back to School” pictures that you oh so want to turn out perfect….or hey wait a minute don’t tell me its just me….is it??

Well in my world everyone does it. Some take the random picture and some have a whole scene set. Well I believe I’m somewhere in between ” I’m just doing it because I saw my neighbor take a picture” and that other neighbor that has the perfect chalk looking back drop with apples and crayons cutouts *sigh*.

I tend to make sure that every year I have some sort of sign that my kids hold up as I take the picture. Information may vary from year to year but the important ones are always there.

They are:

1. The school Year
2. The grade
3. What they want to  be when they grow up

There are years when I added their favorite food or color and 1 year I put their age. But  the three above basics are what really matter in the long run.

I must say I do love pinterest because it gives me so many ideas and may be overwhelming at times….yes I do have over 7K pins but who’s counting!??!? It’s amazing for research because chances are what you’re looking for someone else has done too!!

Well luckily I found the perfect printables (FREE because that’s the way I roll) at Barn owl primitives.

The best thing was that there were choices of either PINK or AQUA. You don’t even have to download, you can just go ahead and print the page/grade you want. So easy…I love easy and no fuss.

Now as much as I loved them and had to use them my issue was they weren’t personalized.

GOD forbid should I do something that’s not child specific!!!

So I took those printables a step further…. I found the perfect frames that the girls could hold as I take the picture from IKEA. ( confession, I had those frames already I just never got around to putting the girls’ certificates in them)

Back to jazzing it up I did a simple PowerPoint bordered text box with what the girls wanted to be when they grew up….did a vertical rainbow text with their name….cut those out….stuck it next to the pintable and VIOLA!!! Easy peasy lemon squeezy as Zee woud say!!

Check out the final product……Now the trick is don’t put the glass back on the frame because trying to take a picture without a glass glare is really frustrating! Relieve yourself in advance and just “un-glass” your frame

After you make that mad dash out of your door and before you get into the car be sure to take a few snaps of your kids…..yeah that was the point and not a secret desire to make signs!

Now we did more than just one….the one with each child alone, the one together and a few just because without the signs. But I’ll spare you from going through a gallery of pictures (you can do it on my instagram account samoorstuff later)

We were lucky enough to actually have some time when we got to school and snap a few pics with the girls’ teachers for the year.

If you notice Mr. Palingo is holding our Teacher’s survival kit that we’ve created for him…. check out how to make one on last year’s post “Teacher’s Survival Kit”

Remember make it your own….. because it’s all about Making Life Memorable.