Personalized Hall Pass for teachers

Have you ever wanted to get your child's teacher a unique gift to show them how much you appreciate what they do, but just couldn't find the right thing?  I have looked through all of the cute little quotes attached to candy or coffee mugs and while I liked them, I still didn't want to give my child's teacher something that they could receive from every other thankful mama in the classroom.  So, I put on my thinking cap and tried to come up with something.  Something that they could use all year long as well as incorporate their style in the classroom.  I remembered my daughter telling me a story about one teacher who had the kids carry a hockey stick with them in the halls.  While his goal was to embarrass the child who might not have been completely honest about the reasons to leave class, I understood that there was a need for it too.  Those kids who had to carry that hockey stick, legitimately had to be somewhere else, and I guarantee that teacher always got his hall pass back!  I came up with these signs that can be displayed in the classroom.   I had so much fun making these cute hall pass signs for teachers, and I think you would too.

     The first step in making any of these projects is to head out to the woodworking shop.  There I found some 1/2 inch thick pieces of birch wood plywood and cut out several boards to about 9x5 size.  I then cut four smaller strips, to go with each larger sign, to about the size of 1 1/2 wide and varied the lengths to allow for the length of the words that would go on them.  I also wanted them to be varying lengths because I felt it made your eye follow across the piece and added an aesthetic value.

After all of the pieces were cut out, I routered the edges, sanded them down and picked out some pretty paper in matching colors to modge podge on to the wood.  I love to vary the patterns and find a cute blend of colors to really make the signs pop.

When the signs were dry, I sanded off the excess paper around the edges.  Then I drilled small holes along the bottom edge of the sign and in the tops of the tags.  This allowed me to screw in cup hooks and eye screws so the tags could hang from the sign.

I picked a cool font and hand painted the teachers name on the sign.  I painted "nurse", "office", "girls", and "boys" on each separate tag.  

When the paint was completely dry, I screwed in two D-rings on the back of the sign so they could be hung on the wall and stay balanced if a tag was taken off while in use. 

The final step, is to Modge Podge over the painted sign and tags.  This gave it a finished look and will help allow it to wiped down occasionally.  

I really enjoyed making these and I am so pleased with the way they turned out.  You will be too, so get out there and get to building something great!  (Or shoot me a message and I'll fix one up for you and ship it to ya!)

Enjoy yourself and your path to happy, healthy and whole.

~tracelaine