8 Creative Ways to Celebrate and Display Kids’ Artwork

By Tiffany Doerr Guerzon

Transform this school year’s haul of kid masterpieces into artful placemats, totally awesome togs, greeting cards and more!

1/ Make it wearable • akimiro.com Turn your child’s art-class masterpieces into wearable merch with Akimiro, a Seattle-based create-your-own clothing site. Each clothing item is made to order, so your kiddo’s art is center stage on a quality garment. Your pint-size Picasso can also submit their art to be part of the Little Artists Collection, a collab with Akimiro that features joyous creations everyone can purchase.

2/ Print custom greeting cards • shutterfly.com Take a photo of your child’s latest masterwork, then upload it to Shutterfly to have it turned into a set of greeting cards! Use the cards as thank-you notes or to send a fond hello to a relative. Grandparents love to receive a custom card in the mail from their favorite little artists.

3/ Make it a ‘curtain’ call • allthingsgd.com We discovered this brilliant idea for showcasing kid art on the All Things G&D blog. Mount a set of Ikea curtain wires on the wall and use curtain clips to neatly hang and organize your child’s latest creations. What we love about this idea is that it’s simple to swap the art in and out. Also, the clips slide easily along the wire, so you can adjust them to present larger-size works. Mama Dusty, your genius is showing!

4/ Create a photographic keepsake • artkiveapp.com If you love the idea of a coffee-table book or framed mosaic that showcases all of your kiddo’s art, but don’t have the time to make one yourself, you’re in luck! Artkive does all of the work for you: The company will send you a box to fill with up to 400 pieces of your child’s precious artwork; you ship it back and — voilà! — as if by a miracle, a gorgeous book or wall-mountable composition arrives.

5/ Turn their chef d’oeuvre into a stuffed animal • budsies.com If your favorite artist has presented you with an adorable drawing that you just can’t get enough of, consider commemorating it as a super-special stuffie! Simply upload a photo of your kiddo’s whimsical little creation to Budsies, and the company will create a custom 16- or 30-inch plush toy in its likeness. Talk about an utterly unique keepsake to treasure for a lifetime.

6/ Enjoy art at the dinner table • kidsactivitiesblog.com Not everyone has the wall space to mount a large display, but this idea from the Kids Activities blog is a great way to showcase art right on your family’s most creative canvas of all: the kitchen table. The blog’s author produced placemats by laminating her sons’ paper-based art. If you don’t own a laminator, clear contact paper will work just as well to create one-of-a-kind waterproof placemats that will make every mealtime a tasteful affair.

7/ ‘Tote’-ally adorable (and useful!) • snaptotes.com Don’t leave the art at home! With Snaptotes, you can display your mini Monet’s work on the go. Most parents of small children need some kind of a bag to haul their kid’s stuff around anyway. Snaptotes also creates custom wallets, wristlets, diaper bags and many other clever, customizable totables.

8/ Everyone loves a garland • skiptomylou.org A fun way to add a dash of color and celebratory verve to any room is with an upcycled art garland. Because this project from Skip to My Lou requires cutting artwork into pieces, it is an especially good use of multiples of similar art projects, sweet scribbles and fanciful finger paintings. Another bonus is that this project uses materials you probably already have lying about the house. ■ — Tiffany Doerr Guerzon

Framed mosaics of kids’ art. Photo courtesy artkiveapp.com

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