Displaying creative projects
– Ideas for displaying children’s art and craft work.
We are all guilty of “Now what am I going to do with this…. I don’t need it cluttering my house up“. My particular personal hate is endless junk modelling or projects which involved a lot of glitter, sequins and pom- poms despite encouraging and allowing my children to make things out of them and loving watching what they make with it. A day after they have made it, I want it gone and they soon can easily find their way to the recycle bin with only the best being held on to. As a general rule in our house we do try to make projects I don’t mind having on display (though they do make plenty of the random kind). In their eyes it all looks good – even that randomly painted cereal box, that unbeknown to you is a super flying aeroplane. However as a mother let’s be honest here I only want the ones that makes my house look good, not clutter and a mess.
As I have mention in earlier blogs our house often resembles a children Art gallery and I do really love having my children’s Arts and crafts on display. Apart from genuine enjoying what my children create I believe it is important to remember children do feel proud and special if you enjoy their art work and show it off. In our house on a very regular basis the boys do make lots I don’t want to part with and I can never see myself at this moment in time ever getting rid of. I guess I hope when I put their work on display I am telling them so much unknowingly without words “mummy loves my art – I’m good at this”. Hopefully in turn they will become proud of their own accomplishments leading them to gain confidence in their abilities and good strong self-esteem. As a result they enjoy doing it and will want to do more to please.
Though we have arts/craft dotted all around our house at any given time that we have created and I personally love it, at times it gets too much, so we have created particular areas for different things.
So here are a few ideas I have done, to display/ store their masterpieces for their sake and mine:
Home art gallery – A kitchen wall/pin board for your child’s 2D artwork, drawings, collages and paintings. (The Kitchen door/cupboards in our house our for more personal extra special work created for mum by the boys).
Individual personal Art wall/ Gallery – We also alongside the kitchen door use the boys bedroom doors as Individual personal Art wall for their favourite pictures or the most up to date.
Frame your favourite drawing and put on display as a forever treasured keepsake – I have Framed two (one for each boy) of my favourite extra special picture they did for me, each of these pictures were/are extra special and tell an individual personal story of a time, place, memory to me and the individual child. A treasured forever Keepsake.
Individual yearly Scrap book for all the endless drawings/paintings – The pictures that ‘I can’t bear to throw out and at the moment I want to hold on to!‘ or need to be moved from the doors to create new space. For each entry I stick it in the book – making sure it has a small description, date and name. As my memory might not always been there in years to come – I have already lost track how many scrapbooks we have in the boys individual keepsake box in the loft.
A craft shelf– We have one ever changing shelf on our stairway for the best 3D craft models (the others live in the boy bedrooms).
Re- gift – Re use pictures as wrapping paper (see projects for ideas), turn into birthday cards, pictures in frames or turn into gifts for family and friends.
It sounds like it could be a lot of work, It doesn’t have to be time-consuming if you set your mind to it and find a little time to organise yourself. I actively involve the boys in this activity, Once set up it is easy to just add to and create your own child’s Art Gallery.
emmas xxx