If there's one thing we have a lot of in our house, it's the kids' artwork.  They are always making such cool projects at school and I never want to just throw it away.  So, I have quite a bit around the house.

  I take their seasonal artwork out to display during the holidays, but (as you can see below) with so many pieces, I needed some additional ideas for integrating it into our holiday decorating.

Display by Theme

The first thing I do is choose a theme -- for example, this is our 'Winter Wall'. 

Sometimes it might be a snowman theme or a reindeer theme -- choose something that will work with a large group of their pictures. 

Then we just create a collage on the wall at the top of our stairway (we use painter's tape so it doesn't damage the paint on the wall). 

The advantages:

• the artwork can be seen by many

• the theme helps the kids and I to choose which pieces to display together

• by doing a simple collage wall, you can rotate it throughout the year

Using Smaller Pieces for Decorating

 We then gather some of the smaller pieces (and also 'damaged' artwork) to use in various ways. 

The poinsettia picture above was one that I LOVED but when it came home from school, there were a number of tears in the yellow paper since it was stapled to a bulletin board. 

As you can see in the photo collage, we used packing tape (but you can also use contact paper) to cover the smaller artwork.  Lay it out with the sticky side up and place the artwork on the tape.  Then cover the back with tape also.  Use scissors to trim up the edges of the tape and punch a hole in the top.  Super easy!  And durable!

Here's an example of how to use a handprint or spongeprint piece of artwork -- we took a tree and traced it over the handwork painting my daughter had completed when she was young, and then cut it out.  I love the texture of the new tree - very unique :-)

How to Display the Completed Pieces

Tree Ornaments

 Kids can hang them on the tree or you might even let them have their own small tree in their room or playroom to decorate!

 Hang on Windows or Doorknobs

We decorate the doors in the house when we have guests for the holidays.  String a nice ribbon through the punched hole and you can easily hang them from doorknobs, or display them on the windows.

Another Idea: 

If you punch a hole on each side of artwork, you can connect them with ribbon and you'll have a beautiful artwork garland to hang!

Use as Gift Tags

This is a favorite of mine!  If you use a dry erase marker, the covered artwork can double as gift tags! 

And with dry erase, you can remove the ink with a little water and reuse the tags each year!!

If you use a Sharpie, it will be permenant but what a lovely way to tag a present for grandparents - I guarantee they'll love the tag more than what's in the box :-)

Happy Holidays! 

~ Jacquie

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