Back to School With Uppercase Living: Getting Your Greek On

Every year, it seems Back To School time comes earlier and earlier. As my kids grow and my circle of friends expands, I'm realizing that "Back to School" means different things to different people. For me, it means buying jeans and sneakers and wondering about school lunches and kindergarten schedules, while adjusting to having a middle schooler for the first time. For my neighbor who works at home, it means the last few days of the countdown he started on the last day of school. And for others, it means dropping their babies off at dormitories and frat houses, saying "good bye" until their kids come home for Thanksgiving break.

For many, many young people, the college experience goes hand in hand with Sorority and Fraternity life. Students in the Greek system love to wear their letters with pride. It's on their clothing and jewelry...and now it can go on their walls and so many other places.

One of the best kept secrets about Uppercase Living is that we have the entire Greek alphabet in a range of sizes and all of our great colors. One of our smart Senior Directors took full advantage of this when she dropped her daughter off at the Pi Beta Phi house at the University of Kentucky this weekend by applying a variety of colorful expressions.

The main installation is the Sorority's letters that you see above. Of course, all college students need a memo board on their doors for notes from roommates and friends who stop by. So our Pi Phi got an Uppercase Living dry erase Erasable with a frame and again, the same Greek letters from the wall, in a much smaller size.

 

Throughout their history, the women of Pi Phi have been associated with Angels, so Mom chose an  Angel expression for above her daughter's bed in a color that perfectly complements the fun bedding. 

 On the adjoining wall, she created a custom expression about angels using two different fonts. Our vinyl lettering is the perfect solution for these walls because at the end of the year, the letters can be simply removed without causing any damage to the painted surface underneath.

Of course, doors and walls aren't the only places that can be adorned with those Greek letters. Think water bottles, cars, bikes or scooters, mirrors, and all those gifts for little sisters!

If your college student isn't in a sorority or fraternity, you can still send some lettering to school to decorate their dorm rooms and apartments. Keep your focus on the home team, school colors and lots of Erasables (stay tuned for a post on how Erasables can make going back to school a little easier).
Regardless of what kind of lettering you and your student choose to decorate with, it will add an element of fun, school pride and most important of all, a subtle reminder that someone at home is thinking about that student with love. Who knows? It might even motivate them to call home once in a while!

Thanks to Uppercase Living Senior Director Felicia Garrett for sharing these photos of her daughter's room.

Whitworth-Buchanan Middle School Media Center

Remember when school libraries were boring spaces, stacked floor to ceiling with books, magazines and those long drawers which held the card catalog? Not only do they not look like that anymore, they're not even called libraries anymore. Today's media centers house books, of course, but also AV materials and computers, to start.

Today's media specialists (don't call them "librarians") not only have to keep up with all of the materials under their care, but they also have to make their spaces accessible and inviting for the students who use them. That's a pretty tall order with the state of school budgets today. Luckily for the students at Whitworth-Buchanan Middle School in Murfeesboro, Tennessee, their media specialist used Uppercase Living to fun lettering and inspirational words to the bare walls of the media center.

The words are created in a variety of fonts with letters as tall as 13 inches! See all those circles? Each is actually one of a three part design which was divided to make the budget stretch further. The overall look is colorful, fun and whimsical.

These tables will hold computers. The custom design was created to reach across the bare wall and reflects the purpose of the space.

Another inspirational custom design fills an awkward space.

Notice that the walls in this media center are all made of cinder block, a common building material in schools and one that is difficult to decorate without drilling holes. Vinyl, therefore, is a great choice. Totally versatile, customizable and easy to apply, it is a fantastic solution for classrooms, gymnasiums and even outdoor spaces in schools.

I better wrap this up before I start making awful school references like "Uppercase Living really makes the grade," or "UL helped this media center get an A+." Oops, too late.