Birthday Posters

This year, I've resumed my duties as my kids' school's Official Birthday Poster Maker. The school opened when Nicky was in first grade. This morning I hung the very last birthday poster that will have his name on it.

Why does junior high have to be a thing? WHY?

Anyway, here are the posters I've made so far this year. 

September

October

November

December

Now that I see the pictures all together, I'm noticing an abundance of blue. I'll have to broaden my color scheme in 2019.

Even though it's a lot of work, it's really fun to make the poster each month. Every time I go to the school to hang them up, whoever is in the hall at the time will stop and wait to see the poster unroll. I break out in a sweat while people watch me tape the paper to the wall (it ends up crooked every time - grumble, grumble), but I'm always met with some rewarding "Oooo's" and "Ahhhh's."

My Christmas Project

Last year while we were driving around looking at Christmas lights, we stumbled across a Charlie Brown photo op in someone's yard. We let the kids out and snapped some photos, and I thought it was really cute. It made me think about making something similar for my own yard. 

Christmas Outing 2020

As the Christmas season approached this year, I started thinking about it again, but it wasn't a priority. Then my in-laws were put in charge of their ward Christmas party, and they decided to do a Charlie Brown theme, so that settled it! I wanted to make Charlie Brown photo op (is that what these things are called? I don't even know) which I could lend to my in-laws for their ward party... and again for their family party of the same theme... and then put in my own yard leading up to Christmas. 

The day after Thanksgiving (with no Black Friday goals), we went to Lowe's, bought two sheets of particle board and a can of primer, and got to work!  I had a lot of paint supplies on hand already, so I only had to buy a few things to get by. Scotty cut the wood how I wanted it and built the stand (he's so good to go along with my *big* ideas). Then I started the mural. I looked online and found a photo I liked that worked with the dimensions I wanted (6' x 8').

Here are some of the photos of the project in process: 

Here's the point where we cut out the face holes. I made the mistake of using my head as a guide... forgetting that I have an abnormally large noggin... so the holes are a bit on the big side, but they work! 

I loved watching it come together as I got to add more and more details. I was most excited for Pig Pen. I couldn't wait to paint his unruly hair and make him dirty!

His dirt cloud is kind of hard to see against the dark blue background, which is sad, but I love his filth all the same. 

Here's the final project (pardon the glare from the light coming through the garage door):

I had so much fun making it, and I'm really excited to see it put to use. I'm not sure how the heck we're going to transport it, but luckily we only have to get it half a mile up the road. Worst case scenario, we use furniture movers with wheels and roll it up the sidewalk. I'm sure we'll come up with something easier, but boy, wouldn't that be fun to watch? It's uphill to the church, but we can just set it free to get it back home!

I guess I have the PTA to thank for my ability to create things like this. I don't know if I ever would have attempted such a project if it weren't for my experience making birthday posters for the school for all those years. I wouldn’t have known I was capable. I did cheat a little, though. Right before COVID hit, I invested in a projector. Prior to that, I'd done everything free-hand, and it always took FOREVER!! So finally, I thought, If I'm going to keep doing this, I'm going to spend the money for a projector! (seven years later...) So I bought one... and then COVID came before I ever used it, and I haven't done the birthday posters since (shhhh!!! I'm hoping no one noticed and that we can just quietly carry on not doing the birthday posters). 

Anyway, I used the projector for the first time in October to make the hitch hiking ghosts for the trunk or treat. 

Turns out, the projector doesn't make it that much easier... it's really hard to position (I had to stack and unstack a bunch of books under it and then wedge folded pieces of paper beneath one side to make it straight... then I couldn't get the image clear, and it was very time consuming. 

The projector is nice to get the positions and sizes of the characters correct and is helpful in getting the basic outline. The projector isn't very good for the more intricate details since they don't project very well at the size I create them. So while I did use a projector to outline the big shapes, I still had to do a lot of the details free-hand. 

Now I'm the proud new owner of a gigantic Charlie Brown mural... that I'll have to store... somewhere on my property... for years to come. But I love it very much! So just like my children, it will be worth making room for!

Birthday Posters - The Second Half

For the past two years, I've made birthday posters for my son's school. You can see last year's posters here, and the first half of this year's posters here.

Each month I get a list of the student's birthdays and make a poster with their names on it. 

In January, I did a poster with stars and guitars. 

 

February was "Birthday Sweethearts." I sacrificed my favorite box for this poster. I found it at Sam's Club in the pile of boxes, and it was entirely white and had handles. Take my word for it, it was an amazing box.

 

In March I paid tribute to the NCAA (which I care nothing about). My husband and kids were all obsessed with their brackets, so it's really all I could think of.

 

In April, I did a bubble gum machine. At this point, I was nine months pregnant, and I was a little bit miserable. I ended up asking a friend to come help me because maneuvering my sizable belly around a school poster wasn't exactly my idea of fun. I pawned off a lot of the cutting, and she was heppy to oblige.

 

For May's poster, I had a two-week-old baby. I had great intentions of having May's poster completed before I had the baby, but it didn't happen. This Pac-Man poster took everything out of me! I pretty much let Daisy take over. It was supposed to have a sign above it that read, "A-MAZE-ing May Birthdays," but when I went to print it, I was one piece of paper short, and I just didn't care anymore.

I'm not sure if I'll be doing it again next year. The school will have a new PTA president, so things might be different. Part of me is happy to retire, but another part of me wants to keep doing it. It has been a nice assignment because I've been able to be involved with the school, but it's something I can do on my own time and without worrying about coordinating with other people. 

A Year of School Posters

For the past five years (with the exception of year three when I told the PTA I would "think about it" and then never got back to them) I've done a birthday poster for my children's school. Every year, I think it will be the last year, and every year, I get asked to do it again, and I say yes.

This year, when they asked me, I thought, "I should say no." But then I pondered things and realized that I have no good reason to say no. I know that it's trendy to say no, and there are all these mantras about learning to say no, but being helpful requires saying yes! Granted, the school could survive without a birthday poster each month, but it's become a fun tradition, and I love when students see me carrying the poster into the school, and they start whispering to each other, "What do you think it is this time?"

Here are all of the posters from this year (minus February because February was such an embarrassment that I didn't even take a picture of it).

January

March

April

May

September

October

November

December 

On addition to the birthday posters, I usually get asked to to a couple of teacher appreciation posters. This year, they had us do them on standard poster board. I made one for Nicky's teacher and one for the librarians:

Nicky's teacher told me that she was going to take hers home, put it in a frame, and hang it in her basement. That made me glad that I'd done the extra work to fix her name, which I'd misspelled. 

Here are my other posts with posters I've done for the school:

2016-2017

2015 Part II

2015 Part I

2013-2014

Birthday Posters - The First Half

This school year I have continued making birthday posters for Nicky's school (see last year's posters here). It's a good assignment, and I have a lot of fun with it. Daisy is my official poster consultant and assistant (there are pros and cons to this). Here's what we came up with for the first half of the year:

For September, we based our poster on Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons. My kids love Pete the Cat. Hopefully a lot of other children at Nicky's school do too. Otherwise they probably thought the poster lady just has a weird obsession with cats and buttons.

For October we did a haunted house with ghosts and pumpkins. Not the most original school poster in the world, but it worked.

In November, I tried to come up with something other than Thanksgiving, and since Charles Shultz was born in November, I decided to do a Snoopy poster. I even added Charles' name on a paw... tiny details no one will ever notice.

December was a fun one - I'd been wanting to post our curly-haired principal's head on something, and when I saw some Elf posters online, I knew what I had to do. When I went to the school to hang up the poster, the upper grades were on their way to lunch, and the poster caused quite a ruckus. The kids' reaction was totally worth any sort of trouble I might have gotten in. Luckily we have the perfect principal for antics like this (this wouldn't have been okay at my son's original school). 

Birthday Poster Round-Up

A few years ago the PTA president at my kids' school asked if I would make a birthday poster each month for the school. I did the posters for two years. Then it became a little too much with school, so I took last year off, but this year I started up again. Here are the posters I have made for this school year so far:

It's a fun way to exercise my creative muscles and help out at the school. 

See some of the other posters I've made:

Here, here, & here

The Latest in Birthday Posters

For the past six years I've made a monthly birthday poster for my kids' school. My favorite day of the school year is the day I hang the last poster! That happened last week. I always start of the year going strong, and then by May, I never want to see a roll of butcher paper again (but then I agree to continue doing it the next year. It's a vicious cycle!)

I posted the first half of the year's posters here. These are the rest for this school year:

January

In January, our family went to Disneyland, so naturally, I had Disney on the brain. Stars are one of my favorite shapes to use for the kids' names. 

February

In February, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part came to theaters, so I made Emmett. Let it be known, Lego hands are complicated. 

March

In March I saw a Baby Shark birthday invitation, and I realized how simple the sharks would be to make out of paper, so Baby Shark, it was! But what looks "simple" never really is. These posters all take at least four hours. Some take longer. 

I draw most things free-hand on white paper, and when it looks right, I hang it on my window and trace it on to colored paper. I have to make all the pieces out of the right colors and then glue them together. I'm always on the look-out for images that would be easy(ish) to make with layered colored paper. 

April

This was the first time I did anything with an Easter theme. I haven't wanted to do Easter posters in March (it feels too early) or when Easter is early in April (because then it feels out-dated for the rest of the month). Since Easter was toward the end of April, I did an Easter poster. 

Also, this school year I started using paint sometimes. I painted the Easter basket in this one and then used a Sharpie to make the details. I also used paint to make Charlie Brown and Frosty the Snowman. 

May

For May I wanted to do something for Endgame. I had big ideas, but I went with this one since I love Captain America, and it was "simple." I figure I can use some more of my Avengers ideas next year when I'm in a rut. 

It's May

Every year, it's tradition for many of my friends to send me Justin Timberlake "It's gonna be May" memes." This has gone on for so long, that if I haven't received any by April 28th, I start to get nervous. Luckily, they always pull through.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again... May is cray.

(Just my annual reminder to everyone in the world... don't get married in May!)

(Also, I just have to point out how outdated I am with my Justin Timberlake memes and my use of the term "cray" - which I only use to make fun of the term "cray," but then I have to laugh at how making fun of words ends up making them part of your vocabulary, and in the end - the stupid words win!)

So May is upon us, which means stress is upon us. But there's one thing that's very exciting to me about May: it means the final birthday poster for the school year!

Ten years ago, my kids started at a brand new school, and the PTA president asked me to make a monthly poster for the students' birthdays. I got to have a break during COVID, but now I'm back at it. Last week, I did the final poster for the year and skipped out of the building with my head held high. Bring on summer break! (Break from the birthday posters, that is. I'm scared to death - as usual - of having my kids home for three months). 

Here are all of the posters I made this year:

September

Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons

This year, I wasn't feeling very creative, so I started re-doing posters from past years. This is one I had done before. I had to start from scratch, though. Part of me wishes I'd saved all the posters from past years so I can re-use parts of them, but the other part of me is unwilling to store them. Also, after being rolled up, they're not always in good shape anyway.

October

Haunted Mansion

This is one case where I was able to re-use an old poster. I painted this Haunted Mansion poster for a trunk or treat a couple of years ago, and I re-vamped it as a birthday poster. It was a little wrinkly, as you can see, but it worked.

November

Sponge Bob 

This one was fun and new and probably my favorite poster of the year. 

December

Penguin

This was another recycled idea. I made this penguin several years ago, and Zoe insisted on bringing it home and hanging it on her bedroom wall. I reclaimed it, added a scarf, and made a poster. 

January 

Rocket Ship

Not much to say about this one. 

February

Groundhog Day

You may recall that I have a daughter who's obsessed with Groundhog Day. Zoe really wanted me to make a groundhog poster in February, so I obliged. I even made an extra groundhog so she could hang one in her room. She ended up taking this one, too, so there are TWO groundhogs hanging on her bedroom door. 

March

The Madness

This is anther poster I'd done in the past. I had to ask Scotty if March Madness still exists (it does) before I made it. 

April

Popcorn

This is another re-do from a past year. Not my favorite. My first one was better, but I remember not liking that one, either. 

May

May the Fourth be With You

And finally... it's May. And another poster re-do.