Before I started this parenting blog, I ran an art education blog. After six years in an elementary art classroom and five in an art museum I have seen all the many ways art can enrich the lives of children and families. I try to use what I have learned as an art educator with my own children. One of the most important (and easiest) things a parent can do to foster art appreciation at home is to display artwork around the house.
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Why display children's art work in your home?
- It shows your children that you value their work and their creativity
- It fosters an appreciation of the Arts
- It boosts a child's confidence to see their creation is important enough to be displayed
- It can make art a part of daily conversations
- It brightens up your home
- It gives kids a sense of ownership in their spaces, because in a sense they helped to decorate
- It lets them show off their work to guests and in the process remembering that particular lesson/activity and increasing their comprehension
How to best display kid art
I know not everyone wants to have their house covered in finger paintings and scribble drawings, but there are ways to incorporate your child's art into your home decor that still look neat and stylish. You don't need anything fancy...sticking the art to the fridge or bulletin board is just fine, but here are some of my FAVORITE ways to display children's art:
POSTER HANGER
I love the look of these Wooden Magnetic Poster Hangers. They are great for large kid art works and are easy to change out the art when you want to display something new. You can also DIY a version of this with wooden pants hangers or thin strips of wood, magnets and string!
CABINET FRAMES
Nothing makes a kid's artwork feel more special than to see it framed with a mat and a real professional frame. This is a great option for an art work that you want to display permanently or for a longer period of time as it takes a lot more effort to change the art in a real frame. That is why Cabinet Frames are great, because they look professional, but are easy to change out the work. A lot of cabinet frames also make great art storage. The problem with cabinet frames is they only accommodate standard size art work.
PICTURE WIRE
This magnetic picture wire is pictured above in my featured image. It is great for holding a lot of art and the vertical design takes up less wall space. The magnets are teeny tiny but ridiculously strong. They can hold paintings on heavy card stock and paper plates without problem. The wires can be easily moved and the magnets repositioned if needed.
MOBILE
For smaller artworks like photographs, small drawings or some small three-dimensional art, these clip photo mobiles are great. A mobile is a great solution when you don't have a lot of available wall space and you need a quick and easy way to change out artworks.
FRAME DECALS
These picture frame decals would be really cute for making a gallery wall in your house. If you are looking for a more cheaper DIY option you can create your own frames on the wall using colorful washi tape and use poster strips or tape to change out the art inside the frames. You can also display art on a chalkboard and draw decorative frames using chalk or chalkboard markers.
OTHER WAYS TO DISPLAY KID ART
Because kids' artwork often comes in crazy shapes and sizes, you might want to consider photographing/scanning the art and resizing before displaying. Once the art is turned into a jpeg you have A LOT of display options.
- Print artwork onto mugs, canvas totes, pillows etc.
- Create a calendar featuring kid art
- Print the art work onto a canvas, metal or wood.
- Minimize the jpegs and put a bunch of the images on one big poster to display in a poster frame.
- Create a photo book for each year with all of your child's art (I'm working on this now for Teddy, but I wish I started it since he was a baby)
- Or go green and display the art in a wooden digital picture frame that plays like a gallery slide show.
We hang ours on a “clothesline” with clothespins, but the incoming basket of masterpieces is still overflowing! Thanks for the ideas
Oh yea a clothesline works great! I totally feel ya the “masterpieces” pile up so fast and I can’t bear to throw any of them away yet haha