Decorative Signs for your Classroom for Cheap with Your Cricut

This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase an item through this link, I will receive a commission from the retailer.

I love the look of wood signs.  However, they can cost a few bucks to make and are hard to hang in your classroom.  I’ll show you how to make decorative signs for your classroom for cheap with your cricut .  Plus they are light-weight and easy to hang.  The door to my classroom is metal, and I am going to hang this sign on the inside using magnetic tape.

I wanted to make a sign for the beginning of the year.  Since I am not planning on keeping it up all year,  I didn’t want to spend a ton of money making it.  Using foam board, wood grain Contact paper, and my Cricut, I made a few cute signs.  I used one foam board and one roll of Contact paper along with some vinyl I already had and made THREE signs.
Only one sign is specifically for my classroom, the other two are cute summer-themed ones I have in my house.

Want You Need to Make These Signs

Foam Board-found mine at Dollar Tree

Contact Paper Wood Pattern-Found mine at Dollar Tree

Cricut-I used Cricut Maker

Design Space

Cricut vinyl-I used Cricut removable

X-Acto knife

If you have Cricut Access (so worth the money) the Summer Time image, the lemon, and the Welcome are all free.  As are the 3D flowers.  This was my first time making paper flowers.  I recommend watching this tutorial by Jennifer Maker. Since I was unable to find a quilling tool at any of my local craft stores, I used tweezers. 

Cutting the Foam Board

My foam board was black so I used a white Crayon to draw my cut lines.  Use your ruler as a straight edge to guide your X-Actor knife as you cut.

The knife doesn’t always cut all the way through.  After one cut, stand the foam board up and slide the knife through to completely cut through the bottom layer.

Applying the Contact Paper

Contact paper can be a pain to apply over large areas, but it was a snap for these little projects.  I love how Contact paper has the lines on the back to make measuring and cutting a breeze. Put your foam board on the Contact paper wrong side up and cut leaving 1″ margin all the way around.

See my prior post to learn how to apply the Contact paper smoothly. Once the Contact paper is smoothed on it looks like this.

Creating Your Design

When designing a sign, start by inserting a shape the represent your sign.  Unlock the shape and make it the same size as your real sign.  You can even fill that shape with a wood grain to help you visualize your finished sign.

Working with Cricut Removable vinyl was a little frustrating.  I have worked with lots of different vinyl over the years; including Cricut, Siser, and Oracal.  Cricut Removable vinyl was hard to weed and became unintentionally stuck to other surfaces quite easily.  For removable vinyl, it was next to impossible to remove when it got accidentally stuck to a piece of backing from the Contact Paper. This taught me two valuable lessons: clean your space as you go, and don’t buy removable vinyl again.

After weeding the design, lay it out on your sign to get an idea of placement.

Once you’re happy with the placement, use clear Contact paper as transfer tape. Attach the paper flowers with a little double stick tape.

Three signs for $2.00 (not including the vinyl.) For the summer time and lemonade signs, I was able to use scraps of vinyl I had in my stash.  I did run out of black, so I had to buy a new roll for the welcome sign.  These inexpensive signs will let you create an impact piece for little money and its especially great for a decoration that will be changed out.

I would love to see some of your creations.