I have always admired artists and dabbled in some pitiful attempts to paint, draw, and the like.
My husband actually found a painting that I did and thought his sister gave it to us and said “This is by far the ugliest painting that Kelsey has ever done.” Yeah, I’ll probably never let that one go.
But, that same sweet husband helped me paint words on the walls of our new business, and he isn’t an artist either.
After my years in the classroom, I was gifted an overhead projector from my superstar mother-in-law. This came in handy. I printed the words (in the font that I wanted) onto transparencies (at Office Depot), and then simply projected the image onto the wall.
We then just painted over the shadow of the letters and it nearly looked like someone with art skills had something to do with it. Murals can also be done this way. My friend painted the sportsman fleur de lis onto my son’s wall using our projector too.
I took my son to see the doctor for his routine “return-from-traveling-with-a-cold” visit. After asking the typical questions about his diagnosis, “Is he contagious?” “What can I give him to stop the whining pain?” my next questions were, “Can I take a picture of your art work?” and “Can I blog about it?” From the look on her face, this was the first time she had gotten asked that question at an appointment.
You see, I fell in love with how she had her own children’s artwork displayed in her patient rooms. After she agreed to allow me to take pictures and blog about them, she showed me around the office to see all of her kids’ art! I just loved it all! It’s so hard to not just love a painting or drawing done by a child… even if it’s just lines and dots.
The ways that she had the different projects displayed turned simple child art into masterpieces… framed and hung as if they belonged in a gallery. What child wouldn’t feel so special to have their artwork displayed so prominently in their home?
This is the one that especially caught my eye:
She took her kids to a local art class and this was the project they did with water colors and crayons. I love this because she framed the same project done by all three kids. It’s beautiful and so cheerful!
These paintings could have easily been placed in their baby boxes and forgotten for years until re-discovered down the road when the kids are heading off to college. Instead, my eyes were immediately drawn to them when I walked into her office.
Arts and crafts stores such as Hobby Lobby and Michaels do custom framing, but you can also just bring them an old frame and whatever artwork/pictures you want to frame. They will cut a matte to fit (that’s the purple part you see between the frame and the picture). The matte is what makes this look so polished.
I also love how she had each of the kids sign their names under their artwork. Real artists in the making!
Here is my other favorite from another of the patient rooms:
What a great idea to allow your child to use his or her own picture in his/her painting! I can’t wait to do something similar soon!
This also made me think of my friend’s house and how she displays her kids’ artwork:
1. I love the wall decal with one of my favorite quotes and 2. I love the fact that this is interchangeable, but still clean. (You can purchase a similar wall decal here on Amazon and the wall mount with clips here).
These ideas are all way better than how I have most of our artwork displayed (I’m pretty sure the whole alphabet will not fit on our back doors):
And obviously my kids now think they can stick anything on the doors since they are now covered in stickers as well.
Here are two other ideas from my house:
Jessica also sent me these two amazing pictures and I am totally going to steal this idea because I love it so much! Let the frame-collecting begin!
How do you display your child’s masterpieces? Please share with us on Facebook @themommyteacher!
I know y’all are probably burnt out on all-things-present-related.
But, I did want to share a simple idea that was a hit in our house and it doesn’t have to be packaged as a present…my DIY ribbon streamers.
I made ribbon streamers for my nieces and my kiddos because my friend Eliza uses them in her music classes and they are just too perfect for little movers and shakers.
Case in point:
They are SO easy to make and the materials can be found anywhere, but I bought mine at Walmart {with the exception of my ribbon which I bought at Hobby Lobby when they had a half off sale}:
You just need ribbon, scissors (which didn’t make it in the picture because I do everything in a hurry), a lighter, bangles (bracelets), and a hot glue gun is optional.
I picked out 5 different color spools and this made 7 ribbon streamers.
I double-knotted each ribbon onto the bangles
Then I cut them about the same length – about 12-14 inches from the bracelet.
Finally, I burnt the edges with a lighter so they wouldn’t fray.
(I took a picture but I can’t find it)…once again I do everything in a hurry.
My kids love to dance to this CD at all times:
But, Johnette Downing’s Scarf Activity Songs CD is my favorite to use scarves or ribbons streamers to dance to because the lyrics give directions for moving with the scarves/streamers:
I also gave my niece the idea to make these with her school colors for spirit week so it is a great gift for older kids as well! It’s a modern lemonade-stand-idea for all those little entrepreneurs out there.
You can make these for your kids or “Pin” for a future gift idea, but either way this is our new favorite dancing accessory so it’s worth sharing! 🙂
I know that this is true, but if I walk outside of my Louisiana home right now I could easily work up a sweat.
Still, I was excited to get ready (a day early) and have my kids paint the letters that spell out WINTER and display the season in our playroom over all of our Christmasy art.
Is Christmasy a word? I use it a lot.
I printed this printable and pulled out my paints.
We painted the letters “W” and “T” dark blue.
We painted the letters “I” and “E” light blue.
And we painted the letters “N” and “R” gray.
I deemed these wintry colors.
Is wintry a word? I don’t have time to “google” this stuff y’all.
You could probably back these letters to construction paper to make this even cuter, which I might do when my life slows down. Don’t wait up.
Casey is subbing for her son’s class next week and was brainstorming an activity to do with the students. Casey is so good at coming with Elf on the Shelf ideas that I thought it would be cute if she did an Elf on the Shelf Art and Writing activity with his class.
My former co-worker had her students make an elf using construction paper and measure their elves using paper strips of cube towers.
So, I thought it would be helpful to come up with a template.
I made a single page elf template:
An elf template for coloring an elf on the shelf in detail.
And I also made multiple pages of shapes for tracing and cutting out the template to make a large construction paper elf.
I also added a writing page so that older kids could give their elf a story.
When I sell activities like this on TeachersPayTeachers I also make them available for members. My membership is currently at an all time low price but will go up.
