What Do You Do With Your Kids’ Art?

When your child presents you with their latest masterpiece, do you bring out your saccharine smile?

Or do you say tangled things like colourful, interesting, interesting again while turning it this way and that or roll your eyes from behind dark sunglasses? ME NEITHER!

For years, these treasures flowed like a locust plague into our home, spent time on the fridge or on a bedroom wall only to end up in boxes in the office.

Recently, I made it my business to showcase the standouts and ditch the rest. After years of collecting, neither floods, fires nor silverfish had lessened the pile and it was time for a cull. Before lighting the ceremonial fire, I scanned each piece with love and respect to be used later. You never know which of these may unlock the mysteries of your child’s mind. Hell, they may end up famous and you can finally be compensated for some of the hundreds of thousands of dollars it costs to raise a child.

I decided to create a large gaudy gallery and chose the boldest, funniest, and most arty specimens of the bunch. I had 30 coloured frames to fill so I laid them out on the floor in the exact shape they would appear on the wall. It is worth measuring and re-measuring at this stage. Then choose the art to fit the frame, fiddling around a bit to ensure no one piece steals the thunder of another. Feel free to crop these pics and even get more than one artwork from an original.

I decided to dedicate a few frames to funny quotes from the kids. (A great tip: get a scrapbook for each child and write down the pearls that come out of their mouths. Funny, naive or astute. You think you will never forget this stuff, but age, stress and alcohol mess with your head). You can choose a cool font and print them out or hand write them to fit the frame.

I attached the frames to the wall with velcro sticky things. These are easy to use, have a low profile and are amazingly sturdy.

I also saw these ideas floating around Pinterest:

There! Now all you have to do is stand back and admire the abundance of fine art in front of you. Pat yourself on the back for seeing the potential in your offspring and being the patron on such inspiration and genius.

So, what did you do with your kids art?