If anyone has a small child who attends daycare, I'm sure you understand what I mean when I say that my kitchen has been over ridden with art projects. Everything from scribbles on construction paper, to hand prints, to various things they're studying.
To help combat some of this, I hit up my local Big Lots and was able to find a pretty neat looking storage/hat box that has a pretty good capacity for small papers. However, my daughter's art kept coming in, and I was hopeful I could come up with something neat to do with it instead of throwing all of it away.
While thinking randomly about what I could try, I ran across an old photo collage at my parent's house that I had put together for my high school graduation party. Something clicked. I had layered the photos, leaving only the focus of the pictures showing and secured them together with sticky tack so I didn't have to actually cut them up or glue them. This inspired me to try something different with my daughter's art.
When I got home I pulled out several sheets of her artwork and started looking at it. Obviously, the pieces were too large to layer them in their entirety and there was a lot of space where there were no doodles. I pulled out an old picture frame I had laying around, some scissors and a big bottle of crafting glue, and decided to see where I would end up...
1. Materials:
* Several pieces of your child's art
* Scissors
* Crafting Glue that dries clear (I prefer Aleene's Original Tacky Glue)
* Picture frame
* Photo of your child, at least an inch or two smaller than the frame
2. Start Cutting
Cut whatever shapes you like. I found that various shapes and sizes of triangles work best and are easiest to place. Don't make them too small or you will have a LOT of gluing to do, but don't make them too large either.
You can either go with a multi-rainbow colored theme, or if you have enough pieces in a certain color scheme, you can coordinate it to your room decor.
3. Start Placing
I used the piece of paper that came in the picture frame to glue the pieces directly to. If you want to cut another piece that's ok as well.
I placed a few around the edge to get an idea of the shapes I would need to fill in. I cut a few pieces as I went to fill in some gaps.
4. Start Gluing
Pieces can hang off the edge a bit as you glue them down. This is fine - They can be trimmed off later, before placing into the frame. Overlapping is ok too. Otherwise, you'll drive yourself crazy trying to get pieces that fit exactly together!
Remember that the middle is going to have a photo over top of it, so you don't need to go too far in.
5. Attach the photo
Place the photo however you'd like. I placed mine in the middle, but off to the side would be just fine too - Especially if you have something larger like a hand print or complete small drawing that you would like to include as well.
I put the photo into the frame and fastened it down before the glue was completely dry. This helped the backing to dry flat and not curl.
Here's a larger one that I did, too. I used the handprint on one side, and cut the border of the hand print, then flipped it over on the other side. I thought this turned out so neat! The bigger frames were for the Grandparents. :-)
6. Display
Put the picture wherever you like. If you have more than one child, you could do a collage of their photos in complimentary frames together in a hallway, living room or other room of your choice.
In my case, I did a bunch of these and gave them to family members for Christmas presents. The family got some of her art, and a brand new photo of her as well. Win!
To help combat some of this, I hit up my local Big Lots and was able to find a pretty neat looking storage/hat box that has a pretty good capacity for small papers. However, my daughter's art kept coming in, and I was hopeful I could come up with something neat to do with it instead of throwing all of it away.
While thinking randomly about what I could try, I ran across an old photo collage at my parent's house that I had put together for my high school graduation party. Something clicked. I had layered the photos, leaving only the focus of the pictures showing and secured them together with sticky tack so I didn't have to actually cut them up or glue them. This inspired me to try something different with my daughter's art.
When I got home I pulled out several sheets of her artwork and started looking at it. Obviously, the pieces were too large to layer them in their entirety and there was a lot of space where there were no doodles. I pulled out an old picture frame I had laying around, some scissors and a big bottle of crafting glue, and decided to see where I would end up...
1. Materials:
* Several pieces of your child's art
* Scissors
* Crafting Glue that dries clear (I prefer Aleene's Original Tacky Glue)
* Picture frame
* Photo of your child, at least an inch or two smaller than the frame
2. Start Cutting
Cut whatever shapes you like. I found that various shapes and sizes of triangles work best and are easiest to place. Don't make them too small or you will have a LOT of gluing to do, but don't make them too large either.
You can either go with a multi-rainbow colored theme, or if you have enough pieces in a certain color scheme, you can coordinate it to your room decor.
3. Start Placing
I used the piece of paper that came in the picture frame to glue the pieces directly to. If you want to cut another piece that's ok as well.
I placed a few around the edge to get an idea of the shapes I would need to fill in. I cut a few pieces as I went to fill in some gaps.
4. Start Gluing
Pieces can hang off the edge a bit as you glue them down. This is fine - They can be trimmed off later, before placing into the frame. Overlapping is ok too. Otherwise, you'll drive yourself crazy trying to get pieces that fit exactly together!
Remember that the middle is going to have a photo over top of it, so you don't need to go too far in.
5. Attach the photo
Place the photo however you'd like. I placed mine in the middle, but off to the side would be just fine too - Especially if you have something larger like a hand print or complete small drawing that you would like to include as well.
I put the photo into the frame and fastened it down before the glue was completely dry. This helped the backing to dry flat and not curl.
Here's a larger one that I did, too. I used the handprint on one side, and cut the border of the hand print, then flipped it over on the other side. I thought this turned out so neat! The bigger frames were for the Grandparents. :-)
6. Display
Put the picture wherever you like. If you have more than one child, you could do a collage of their photos in complimentary frames together in a hallway, living room or other room of your choice.
In my case, I did a bunch of these and gave them to family members for Christmas presents. The family got some of her art, and a brand new photo of her as well. Win!
Reasons you, my friend, are freaking brilliant!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I did throw away the scraps when I was finished. lol. I'm considering doing one of these each year. When she gets older and doesn't want me to cut up her real artwork, I'll probably make color copies and then go crazy with those instead. The hardest part will be to find frames each year that compliment everyone and are consistent with the ones from the prior year. I guess there's always spray paint! :-)
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