I’m on a mission to spruce up our shelters table top decor. We have a table scape set up for our Petco Adoption Event weekends. You’ve already seen my DIY Donation jar- a quick an easy project if you’re looking for one- so today I want to talk about table signs.

I spoke with several of the other volunteers about what we might like to see on our table. We came up with the ideas of a ‘featured pet’ board and a list of our sponsors who make rescuing all these little cuties possible in the first place. Several of our dogs are too reactive to come out to Petco (and all the chaos that it entails) so the featured pet board will be a wonderful way to get those dogs some exposure as well! You can see in this photo below how our table has very few 3D elements to it, everything mostly lays flat. I wanted to change that!

With a plan in mind, I attacked my ‘craft stash’ with a vengeance. I emerged victorious about 10 minutes later with two thick pieces of chipboard, a handful of cute scrapbook paper, my ‘fun scissors’, and a pack of mini clothespins in hand.

I had planned to cut out some sign stands out of black cardstock with my silhouette machine, but when I came across these metal stands at Pier One I couldn’t resist. I know they’ll last longer than anything I could have cut out with my silhouette, and won’t get dinged up being carted around in the shelters Petco bags since they’re made of metal. The chipboard just so happened to fit on the stands perfectly and even shows off the cute scrolled top. Some things are just meant to be!

I started by choosing a few pieces of decorative scrapbook paper and attached that to the chipboard with rubber glue. Once fully dry, I kept on attaching scrapbook paper to make a label area at the top of each sign. I have had that plastic doghouse (originally intended for a scrapbook) for at least 5 years now, and I decided it was time to bite the bullet and finally use it on something! The mini clothespins were attached with a bit of hot glue to make sure they’ll stick around for the long haul. I used my silhouette cutting machine to cut the words “featured pet” and “our sponsors” from a roll of silver vinyl. Currently debating if I need to sweet talk my steady-handed hubby into outlining the silver vinyl with a thin black pen. Do you think that would help the words stand out and really pop off the page??

Yoda is one of our sweet dogs at the shelter who happens to love people, but doesn’t always know how to handle himself around the other dogs. I’ve written about him before, and I thought he would be the perfect first candidate for our Featured Pet table sign since he does not come to Petco events with us. I had a photo of him printed out and used my ‘fun scissors’ to create a cute border on the photo. I also typed up a short description of Yoda and printed that out on card stock so it can be pinned into the second set of miniature clothespins. Once we’re ready to feature another dog other than Yoda we can simply change the bio and photo and we’re good to go!

The mini clothespins were cute, but not durable enough to withstand packing in the tub with all our other supplies. You can see how they broke off and tore the paper underneath. After one use it was time for a fix. I pulled out some paw print ribbon and got to work…

As you can see in this final photo, I made the judgement call to outline the letters with thin black sharpie, and I firmly believe it was the right call! Two layers of cute paw print ribbon covered up the torn paper underneath, and I’m going to be able to clip the bio and photo onto the ribbon from there.

 It feels better to know that Yoda is with us in spirit, and we’re doing our bit to get him exposure even when he can’t be there himself. I owe you all a photo of it in action, but I missed last weeks Petco event due to a family funeral.  I’ll be back soon to show you our Sponsor Recognition table sign.

Have you seen the fun adventure that Yoda and I had together?