my head space: My Little Picasso

I was at my girl friend's house today planning our next several Girl Scout meetings. As I was getting ready to leave she was commenting on the amount of artwork she has on the wall of her kitchen hallway. She said she was tired of it and needed to do something to clear it up. With three girls 9 to 4, she has a lot of stuff stuck up on her wall. Even with two girls, I also get more items for display than I know what to do with. So what do you do with all of that artwork? It got me thinking....

Amanda and Sabrina proudly display their
artwork in our mudroom wall.

Clip Them Up. I worked with a wonderful organizer, Irene Zaso, who helped me come up with a system for my daughters' work - most of which goes in the circular file right after I show it to their Dad and Nana. I've learned to try to distinguish between work that is truly worth keeping and what's not. Irene also had me put 3M clips on my mudroom wall to display the keepers. As new stuff comes in, the old stuff gets rotated out. They either go into their large keepsake plastic bins in their closets or the circular file. And then when the bins start filling up we go through those and keep our favorites and the rest go - you guessed it - in the circular file. I have to say lately I've become a very big fan of the circular file (or donation pile) for lots of things in my house! Another blog I suppose.

3M Spring Adhesive Clips

I'm not advocating that you do what I do, though I love my mudroom artwork. It did make me wonder what other solutions there were for displaying the truly special pieces.

Here are some other suggestions I found around the Internet. If you have any ideas, I do hope you share them!

Children's art in fancy frames. - BHG

Frame the Best! If you choose a favorite piece of artwork from each grade level and/or child you can have them specially framed. They would look beautiful in a family room, hallway, shared bathroom or other space. Or they can enjoy seeing their own artwork in their own rooms. It looks nice and neat this way. If you make it less structured you can also add layers of shelves and family photos as well.

Scan It. Another idea that I think is very clever is to scan the artwork. You can shrink it down to use in a symmetrical installation of the art or you can create a great collage. If you create a collage, you can shrink down a year's worth of artwork and have one frame per year!

Large Collage. I think one of my favorite ideas is to either frame out a large space on a wall - and paint the interior a slightly different color to create background - or use an x-large bulletin board or mirror. You can add framed art and also stick art up randomly. It will live in this neat framed space. Love it!

Take a look at the pictures and let me know what other ideas you've come up with to honor your children's work.