10 Things To Do With Your Kids Art
We love the first drawing of that stick figured person, the rainbow, the flower or the monster that comes home with our child and it takes pride of place on our wall. Our kids are creative, we cherish the first drawing they give us, but we soon get inundated with piles of paper paintings, pastings, sculptures and wall hangings! We feel the twinge of guilt as we secretly discard it to the big green bin.
Here we offer 10 ways to display, keep or place value on what your kids do, creative ways to extend the life of their artwork or even keep memories of those pieces that we want to cherish forever and help them remember, without the piles of paper.
1. Hang it
Have space on your wall that is set aside for the kids creations. You can blu-tac it, pin it or even put a pretty frame around it, giving it some attention for a period of time and swapping it with next weeks marvelous Picasso in order to mix it up and keep it fresh! As seen on blogs.babycentre.com
2. Upcycle It
Turn it into a card or wrapping paper and gift it onto a special someone in your world. This is a great activity for the numerous Christmas gifts that need to be wrapped, and a great way for your kids to feel like they are contributing something towards the giving. As seen on www.julep.com
3. Frame It
Find the perfect frame and create a collage of digital pictures to go up in a favourite spot of the house. Found via http://www.jenthousandwords.com/2008/08/artwork-in-boys-room.html.
4. Digital Frame
Use a digital frame to display an array of beautiful creations all at once – their own personal slideshow of their artistic talents as seen on www.theorganisedhousewife.com.au
5. Art Wall
Create a growing Art Wall. It could climb up or outwards and be an ever-expanding mural of children’s art.
6. If you’re feeling BRAVE
Cut a few pieces up at a time and let your children explore creating new pieces adding different pieces together to create a new piece.
7. Create a Personalized Calendar
Create a calendar. There are many ways you can create calendars these days. You can get DIY calendars from various shops including Kikki K and use photo images of their work to stick onto it. You can print pages off and have a display of art work for each month. These could be made for your own personal use or even gifted to family and friends.
8. Photo Book
Take photos of their art and turn it into a photo book that can be gifted back to them on a special birthday or graduation. http://www.blurb.com/ or http://www.zno.com/ (formerly Artisan State) are good examples.
9. ArtKive App
Another genius idea! This app allows you to take photos of your children’s art work and store it with a date and name attached (so no confusing whose art work is whose!) and no cluttered cupboards
with mountains of drawings, collages and 3D creations.
10. Transform it
Lucky Last! If you find that piece that blows your mind and you can’t bear to throw it to the bin why not transform your child’s artwork into a lasting image? You can print on bags, canvases, plates, cups, magnets, key-ring or even a cushion. You name it you can have an image on it. Spatz.com.au is one online store that you can transform art into this.
Enjoy exploring the many ways you can give value to your child’s creations whilst keeping the clutter to a minimum.
