Turn Your Child's Drawings Into Modern Art

All of you moms out there will appreciate this blog post.  I can literally say that I get at least 4 drawings/ paintings or crafts a week that Cruz has done at daycare.  Some of them make the fridge while others get the honor of hanging in my cubical at work for a while.  I file some away in a "memories drawer" in my closet while others eventually find their way to a trash can.  It feels terrible throwing them away but I refuse to hold onto every single piece of paper that comes home.  If I did that I would probably be able to fill a spare bedroom by the time Cruz turns 10 and well, I don't have a spare bedroom.  

So what is a practical solution you ask?  Turn your child's drawings into modern art.  These DIY (do it yourself) ideas are not only practical but artsy fartsy!   There are several different ways you can turn your child's drawings into modern art.  I personally like to plug in ideas to the good ole Google machine to see what comes up.  You can search blogs, websites or images for inspiration.  I have included two different DIY projects that preserves your child's creations and adds a touch a personal modern art to your home.

1 | DIY Framed Series

• Firstly, determine the dimension of space you'd like to fill.  This will impact the size of frame you purchase and/or use.  I am all about vintage, recycled or second hand store incorporation so if you can acquire your frames this way it will add a touch of rustic charm.
• I have always had a thing about grouping in threes...therefore, the following example using three frames fits my personal preference but you can use whatever number of frames you wish.  Again, this will be dictated by the space you are filling.
• Once you have the frames that fit your personal style and the total number of frames that will need to be hung, it is now time to pick which of your child's drawings to use.  Try to use ones that are similar in color for a cohesive look.
• Clean your frame glass with window cleaner.
• Cut down child's drawing to fit the frame size if needed.
• Mount child's drawing in frame.  The use of a matte helps create a cleaner look and I would recommend it.  It is also helpful to use a cardboard filler behind the drawing to ensure that it fits tight against the glass and doesn't let gaping occur.  Gaping can make your drawing look sloppy.
• Repeat cleaning, cutting down drawings and mounting for remaining frames.
• Lastly, hang your frames! {PERFECT}

2 | DIY Collage Print

• This DIY can be done over a gradually period of time or all at once.  Just depends on the amount of time you'd like to spend on it.
• Get out your handy dandy digital camera and start photographing your child's drawings.  Make sure that you are doing this in adequate lighting.  If you use your flash, make sure it isn't washing out the colors or causing bright spots.  I would suggest hanging the drawings on your fridge to take photos of them.  This way you won't have to worry shadows, it will be on a flat surface and you will have a neutral background to crop out.
•  Upload your photos to your computer.  Create a folder in your pictures folder and title it appropriately.  I would recommend that you use an editing program to crop in as tight to the edges as possible.  You can even crop it inside the edges.
• Once you have a library of photos, you can upload them to a printing service site such as Walgreen's, Shutterfly or Walmart to create a collage poster.  Print and frame it using a poster frame or large decorative frame.
• If you have a lot of photos you can print wallet size photos and then mount them on a matte sheet.  Once you mount them you can continue with framing.
• Depending on the look and feel you are going for; you can choose to do color prints like the example below or you can do black & white, sepia and other photo finishes.  {PERFECT}

There are lots of other ways to turn your child's drawings into modern art but these are my favorite two.  I hope you have found this post to be enjoyable and has given you some inspiration to turn all of those papers into modern art.

xoxo

bj