It is, again, the beginning of a new school year! Not only that, but we’re already about a MONTH into the new school year (for most)! Summer always seems to fly by, doesn’t it? From pre-school to elementary school, to high school, to college, with the beginning of the new school year, another round of first-day-of-school photos makes their way. Every August, social media seems to flood with these pics from friends and family. You know the ones: The standing-in-front-of-the-house/school/schoolbus photo on the very first day of the school year while holding that fresh new backpack and school supplies. Whether you shared your child’s back-to-school photo on social media or not, don’t just let it sit on your phone to be forgotten a few months from now! ...So what should you do with them?
1. Create a glossy wall tile for each child’s first-day-of-school picture.
If you have more than one kiddo, take each of their back-to-school photos and display them side-by-side as stick-on glossy wall tiles. And if you feel like changing up the decor in the future, glossy wall tiles make that super simple to do since they don’t cause wall damage! When next year rolls around, you can easily swap them out with the latest back-to-school photos, OR you can swap them out with each transition to a new school when the time comes.
2. Decorate the study room with a wall display of canvas prints showcasing a variety of this school year’s photos.
Whether you’re homeschooling or you have a designated room for doing after-school work, decorate that space with the back-to-school photo along with other special moments that happen throughout the coming semester. You can create custom canvas prints or glossy wall tiles to make each print stand out on the wall. Not only will these make for fun wall art, but there are other benefits to displaying printed photos of your children within their space, such as boosting their self-esteem and making for an inviting environment.
3. Make a scrapbook dedicated to this school year.
We all love a little DIY! Begin the scrapbook with that renowned first-day-of-school photo and continue to add to the pages as the year goes on. Add in the professional school yearbook photo. If you’re able to volunteer for the school parties this year, take photos of your child having a blast at the parties, whether it be dressed as a pumpkin for the Halloween party or passing out Valentine’s to fellow classmates at the Valentine’s Day party. And of course, save a space for the last page to hold the last-day-of-school photo. A school year scrapbook photo book makes for a wonderful keepsake for you and your child to look back on as they grow older.
4. Create a custom canvas print for each year’s first-day-of-school photo.
Start with the pre-school or kindergarten first-day-of-school photo and turn it into any size custom canvas print. Then, for each of the following year’s first-day-of-school photos, create another canvas print and display it side-by-side with the last. You can stop at eighth grade, or you can keep it going through high school or even through the first day of college. If you have a study room or homeschooling room, this is another one that is especially great for displaying in your at-home study room.
5. Create a canvas collage.
Our collage canvases have templates for 2-4 photos on a single canvas, so this one is perfect if you have anywhere from 1-4 kids! If you only have one child and you happened to take multiple versions of that first-day-of-school photo or did a back-to-school photo shoot (maybe with one of those cute back-to-school signs on chalkboards!), you can use those photos to make a canvas collage, commemorating the next milestone in your child’s life.
6. Print it, then gift it!
Use that back-to-school picture to create any of the above, and then gift that photo print to the family. You can surprise your spouse with the photo print, or gift it to Grandma and Grandpa (Grandparents love getting prints of their grandchildren)!
Bonus Tip: You can print old back-to-school photos, too!
The word “old” may be subjective, but in this context, we’re referring to “old” as at least a couple of decades old! If you’ve gone through any of your family’s older photos, you may have come across some of your own, your parents’, or even your grandparents’ school or classroom photos. We recently talked all about the right way to digitize old photos, so if you want to make reprints of school photos past, give that article a read so that you can recreate some high-quality enlargements. These prints would pair well with retro or vintage decor, and they also make for really special gifts to family members.
All-in-all, back-to-school photos are more than just something to share on social media or keep buried in your phone photos (to possibly be lost or deleted later). With every new school year, it marks the beginning of a new chapter in a child’s life, and each back-to-school photo makes that new chapter a moment to remember. Saving and printing these special moments allows for you and your child to look back and reminisce as time keeps moving.
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