Displaying art made by my toddler-artist

[lmintzer]

Jack has a train table with an entire trundle drawer filled with art projects made at a toddler art class and at summer camp (yep, my little man went to camp this summer and loved it!).

I can't bring myself to throw them out, but there are so many of them. I think I might have to take digital pix of all and then pick and choose which to save. If he continues to produce at this rate, our entire house will be buried by the time both boys reach grade school, lol!

My question is about displaying some of the favorite projects. We have a clip board-type thing from PB Kids that holds 3 projects (it's basically a piece of painted wood with 3 clips on it that moutns ot the wall. But I'm thinking I need something more substantial.

What do you think about stringing a clothes line (or some kind of nice cord) across a long wall over his play space in our basement? Then, I could attach projects by using some kind of cute, colored clips.

Of course, this all sounds good in concept, but I need some ideas about a.) what kind of line or cord to use, b) how to attach it to the wall in a way that wouldn't look bad, and c.) what kind of clips to use. I'll attach a picture of our play space to help you visualize.

The wall I'm thinking of isn't actually pictured. It is the wall to the right of (perpendicular to) the wall with the art table.

TIA for any help.



http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/user_files/10070.jpg

http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/user_files/10071.jpg

[redhookmom]

I have seen rope with clips attached sold for just that purchase. I think through discount school supply.

What I did: I bought 6 inch bulletin board squares. I spray painted them balck and attached them to the wall with equal distances between. My first row was about 3 feet from the ceiling. I have added two more rows since.

[marchmommy]

I remember a Pottery Barn catalogue picture that showed kids' art framed in colorful frames on the wall (not to say I don't like your line/hanging idea). You could find cheap, colorful frames to pop the art into and hang them on the wall. I also want to say--is this your basement? It looks spectacular--esp for a basement? And I love the table and train table? Is that the Carolina Pottery Barn table and chairs? And is the train table from PBKids too??? It all looks so nice!

[Jeanne]

Just did this myself! I bought a package that came with a cotton cord and 10 small clothes pins that had Lady Bugs glued on them. I just strung the line across the wall and twisted the string around the nails (hung every 16 inches) and clipped the art projects to it.

Cotton, Hemp, or regular Jute Twine should be strong enough. And I saw plain and colored clothes pins at Michaels. And they have a ton of shapes you can glue to the clothes pins.

[sntm]

Lisa,
Can't remember for the life of me where I saw it, but there was a place where you could send in kids' artwork and they would take high-quality photos of it and create a poster with a collage of 9 or 16 photos. Very professional looking.

You could definitely mimic that by taking them yourself and doing photoshop. Or having a slide show of those as your computer screen saver.
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shannon
not-even-pregnant-yet-overachiever
trying-to-conceive :)
PREGNANT! EDD 6/9/03
mama to Jack 6/6/03
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Breastfeeding 13 months and counting

[lmintzer]

Thanks for the compliment. Yes, this is our basement. Where we live, it's not that common to have a main floor family room (lots of older homes), so we remodeled our basement into a playroom/family room (the "adult" side is on the other side of the room). Yep, it's the PB Kids stuff. We did some one stop shopping (not much time to shop different stores with our little ones) and got the Carolina large table and chairs, train table, and storage unit. I like how it looks too, but I haven't been that happy with how the storage unit and the chairs have held up. They seem to chip/scratch rather easily (and my older ds isn't that hard on things). The Carolina table itself and the train table have held up much better.

[lmintzer]

Jessica, Jean, Shannon, or anyone else whose tried these great ideas: would you happen to have any pictures? I really do like all of your ideas but would love to get a visual. If you have time to post a quick snapshot, I'd much appreciate it!

[starrynight]

The first ones I saved but most of the other ongoing finger paintings and drawings get fridge space for a month and then get recycled. I feel bad but a lot of times the kids just do the same thing a hundred times so I can't save them all!

The ones I don't save I do take pictures of at least, the ones I save get put in a rubbermaid bin after being hung up for awhile.

[new_mommy25]

I got the lady bug pins at Ikea for something ridiculous like 0.99.

[Jeanne]

I will take some this weekend and post them. The only other time I posted a picture, it came out too big to view. I'm still trying to get with this digital revolution!