I’ve had my eye out for two things lately: 1. some creative ideas for displaying kid art, and 2. some interesting eye candy for the walls around our home, specifically, the living room.  I mean, you can’t hang a quilt on every wall (though I’ll die trying).  It occurred to me that perhaps I need not seek out the next Picasso when I might just have him, running around naked, here in my house.  (You never know.)

It seems a little bold, but I decided to adorn our entryway with a few selections from the grand accumulation of scribbled paper that is occupying much of our closet space.  I found a great article on Spearmint Baby with all kinds of good ideas for not only displaying children’s artwork, but also having the ability to rotate it easily.  I particularly liked the framing idea, and decided to replicate it.

I headed to Target and found some pretty cheap frames and then drove directly to the hardware store to pick out some spray paint.  I had to hand over my driver’s license and two other forms of ID just for one can of spray paint and some primer.  Of course, the idea of being a graffiti artist has never once crossed my mind, hence my confusion  when the hardware store employee wanted to get all my information down on paper, signatures and all.  I have to say, though, after spraying down these frames, and seeing them come to life in bright blue, I totally get the appeal.  Oh my goodness…it’s so fun!

So, the project started like this….

and with some white primer, looked like this….

and after a few coats of robin’s egg blue, looked like this:

(you can see, the sun is beginning to set on this project.)

A few nails, some large paper clips, and the difficult task of paring down to the most masterful of masterpieces, the entryway now looks like this:

I loved the paper clip idea — it will be so easy to change these out as often as I like, and soon enough, I hope we’ll relinquish our tight grip on oil crayons (not to mention, my omnipresent fear of mess) and graduate to some more mixed media.

In the meanwhile, I just adore the feeling of walking into my home and seeing all of these scribbles up on the walls.  There’s no question, the colors delight me and the visible signs of artistic process (and a little progress) make a mama proud.  But, I think what I love most is that it feels like a true depiction of what happens here — and in that sense, it feels real.  With every color of the rainbow, this is what’s happening in this house right now.

Yes, welcome.  Do come in.

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