It’s safe to say, my handwriting stinks. I admire anyone with beautiful penmanship in their thank you notes, especially because my handwriting is a strange hybrid of cursive and print. I connect a lot of my letters the way one might do with cursive, but it’s not true cursive.
Why do I connect the t to the e and then the e to the f in my first name? Why do any of these letters connect? Who knows who’s really to blame for this mutant handwriting of mine. But it means I am incapable of making cute things with my handwriting. Posters, signage, letters… all a lost cause. I will never be able to create beautiful works of chalk art for Starbucks menus.
And this also means that the newer trend of parents creating posters or custom chalkboards for their kids’ first days of school is enough to give me anxiety. In this social media age, the pressure to photograph the cutest things at all of the holidays and life milestone moments is at an all-time high. I’m doing all of this for my daughters and their memories, sure. But really I’m also doing it for selfish reasons. LOOK AT MY CUTE KIDS AND MY WITTY INSTAGRAM CAPTIONS AND THEIR OUTFITS ARE COORDINATING AND DID I MENTION #NOFILTER?
I digress.
When it came time for Stella to go back to preschool, I wanted to jump on this first day of school sign trend in a way that wouldn’t make me feel like an amateur in a world of printing Picassos.
Enter letter boards. These awesome signs are getting to be pretty trendy for home and office decor, and it makes sense considering how often I see quotes and song lyrics shared on Instagram and Facebook. Letter boards marry that love of text with something physical and interchangeable. I love that they can work as something informative, inspirational, or even just silly.
And I love how clean, simple, and perfect they look.
I found this one for Stella at Hobby Lobby, although there are many different sizes and colors that can be found online.
After Stella’s first day of school this week, I decided I needed to come up with a fun lyric or quote for the letter board next. My friend Ellen shared a photo on Instagram of a Drake quote on hers (“must be hard to be that fine”) and I thought it was amazing.
So, considering it’s September and my most favorite month ever, I decided an Earth, Wind & Fire lyric was necessary:
I can’t wait to keep swapping out what’s on my letter board, especially as the holidays start rolling in.
I need to start brainstorming ones for Halloween!