Design 411 – Design your children's artwork

This week’s Decor Revolution design tip is to frame your children’s artwork.  We all hang our children’s artwork on the refrigerator door, or tack it up somewhere temporarily, when they make something at school or at home when they are playing with paint or crayons.  I’m talking about making it a permanent part of your décor.  Feature it on the walls of your home like gallery artwork.

Artwork doesn’t have to be expensive to be distinctive.  Some of the most wonderful drawings and paintings come from our children. When we frame them and display them on the walls, it not only sends our children a strong message that we value what they’ve created, and makes them feel special, but it also can make wonderful décor for your home if you display it artistically.

Choose traditional decorative frames, and the artwork will blend easily with its surroundings.

You can create a collection of artwork by using matching frames all the same size and color and display the artwork all on one wall like a gallery.  This can become a place for your children’s artwork to be exhibited on an alternating basis, changing out some of the work for new selections as they are created.  Of course, your children can have input as to what gets displayed.

You can alternate some of the artwork with enlarged photographs of fun activities you have done with your kids.

Introduce a bright color with a large picture mat around the artwork in yellow or blue. Repeat the mat color somewhere else in the room.

Another idea for displaying your children’s artwork is to use plastic holders for displaying photos.  They’re called job ticket holders and they come in all different colors and a couple of different sizes.  The most common size is 12” X 9”.  You can get them online at office supply retailers.  They have a plastic sleeve and this is a cool way to create a display of images on the wall that you can change on an on-going basis.  In the image above, designer Marco Pasanella, has used them to display a photo gallery on the wall of this bedroom.  I think that you could do the same thing with your children’s artwork and create a great gallery wall in their room or the family room or wherever you choose.

Use poster hangers, which are a scroll style of frame-less hanging, to display your children’s artwork.  They are often used to display botanicals, like these above, or maps.  You could easily use the same type of hanging rods to display drawings and paintings done on newsprint paper or watercolor paper.

Another idea is to use a bunch of pant hangers to display artwork from nails in the wall.  How cute is this?  Imagine this idea with your children’s artwork hanging from these pant hangers.  You could even paint the wood part of the hangers in a bright color, like red or blue, or keep it neutral and let the artwork bring in the color.

Whatever method you use to display your kid’s art, the point is that there are many ways to make their artwork seem as special as any other wall décor and play an important role in the design of your interior.  Have fun with this design tip and don’t forget to share your projects with us.  Also, please feel free to pin any of these images to your Pinterest boards or share them on Facebook if you like what you see here on my blog.  Sign up for the Decor Revolution email list, if you aren’t already on it, and want to get more of these great tips.  Thanks!!