You can admit it. I admit that I do it regularly. I usually do it at night when the kids are in bed. I go downstairs ever so quietly and I leaf through the piles upon piles of artwork. I am ruthless. What doesn’t make the cut goes directly into the garbage, the one in the garage, the night before garbage day. I learned the hard way that being sneaky is the only way to accomplish this task successfully. I have to do this or else our home would be overrun with multi-coloured construction papers adorned with poms-poms. Don’t get me wrong. I love that my boys take the time to create artwork and I don’t want to stifle their creativity but there has to be a limit on the amount of masterpieces one can keep. Even the Louvre has limitations!
I have come up with a solution how to showcase a few of my favourite pieces. The boys enjoyed this activity, it doesn’t cost a lot of money and the final result is really special.
At the end of week, month or school year, sit down with your little one and have them choose their favourite pieces of artwork. Because I am somewhat of a control freak and my boys are still young enough, I do an edit of the pile before hand.
Once the selections have been made, place each piece into a frame of its own. Ikea has these perfect frames made from plastic and cardboard. What I love about these frames is that your kids can easily put their art into it without much interference from you. There is no glass upon which little fingers can be cut or expensive frames that can be dropped.
We have decided to hang a series of frames in each of the boys’ rooms but I think that they would look good in a playroom too.
Do you have any ideas for how to showoff your child’s artwork without turning your house into a full-blown gallery?
4 Mothers 