First Day of School Sign Hack

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I'm sure you have seen first day of school photos all across the internet.  I wanted to do one for my son's first day of Junior Twos at daycare.  I found a cute sign on Etsy but was concerned that the odds of my son looking at the camera, smiling and holding the sign with the lettering facing the camera and right side up were super slim.   Plus I didn't feel like going through the hassle of ordering a sign and getting it printed on heavy paper (and my handwriting isn't great, so I didn't want to make one by hand).  

My friend Emily of Joyful Abode gave me the idea of having my son hold a piece of card stock and superimposing the text later.  Brilliant, right?! 

How to Superimpose the Text

I created the text on my phone using an app that I already had called Word Swag (click here to purchase on iOS).  The text design that I used is called "Barber Shop," it is the second design option within the app.  On the screen where you enter the text, slide the lever that appears in the lower lefthand corner to turn off "auto line breaks" so that you control where the line breaks appear by hitting "enter."

More About the Paper/Board

I bought a piece of white foam board at an art supply store for just over $1 and took the photos a couple of days early as a practice run to be able to share here (though I'm not much of a morning person, so I may just stick with these instead of taking photos on the actual first morning of school).  You could use card stock, or any relatively firm paper or card board.  You could even use a black or other deep color paper or material and use white text over it with Word Swag.

I got a lot of really cute photos but in most of them the board was vertical and it was hard to fit the text on it.  So make sure that the board is horizontal.  Unless your kids are bigger and can hold the board relatively level and vertically, you might consider doing it without a board and just making sure that you have a somewhat not busy background to impose the text on.  

Or you could  just insert a white square with the lettering that looks like a sign, but then you would miss outtakes like these:

Are you doing first day photos?  Do you do last day photos too?

If you enjoyed this article, please hit the like button below.  You may also like my list of children's books for transitioning to school and easing separation anxiety.