Hi there! It's Sarah Pendergrast here to share some ideas on how to incorporate your children's artwork into your pages. First off, I have to admit that 99% of the art my kids work ends up in the recycling bin, and more often than not, my daughter finds said artwork and I am 100% busted. So, since I can't possibly keep up with the prolific stream of art that is produced by my kids, I try to do something special with a few of the pieces. Of course, lots goes on the wall and fridge, but what to do after that? Here are a few ways you can incorprate those special pieces into your pages.
1. Use the art as a backgroud for your photo
Lisa Kisch took a photo of her daughter painting, and used the artwork as a background for her page. I love how she incorporated a Monet quote!
Lisa Kisch
2. Use their doodles
Lately, my daughter is really into doodling....and peace signs.... and everything rock and roll. For my layout, I collected several of her doodles, cut them out, and stitched them to my cardstock to create a background for my photo. I added a conversation my kids had recently, about peace signs, in the speech bubbles.
3. Hand cut special lettering or words for titles
In my above example, I also handcut the words "rock and roll" from one of my daughter's doodle pages. She spent a lot of time on the lettering, and I loved how it looked on my page.
When my son was in grade 1, he was given a homework assignment to write three words that described himself. I cut the words out, matted them, and paired them with his school photo from that year.
4. Create an embellishment with the art
My daughter did a cute little drawing of an owl, around the same time she started brownies. I saved it for this layout from her first night. To create a more substantial embellishment, I simple stitched around her drawing with linen thread, then cut out the stitched image:
5. Mat the art like a photo
In my layout I made the little drawings my son created the focus of the layout. I used a tiny school photo of him from that year to document the age he was when they were created.
6. Photograph the art
When my daughter was in kindergarten, she came home with her backpack stuffed with art every day. There were paintings, "kites", "treasure boxes", and sometimes just the contents of someone else's recycling bin. It was a sweet time, but I could not possibly keep up. One day I photographed everything inside her backpack, and created this layout:
Sometimes kids bring home amazing three dimensional works that simply cannot be saved in a scrapbook. For these, especially the ones they've worked really hard on, I like to photograph them. Here's an example where I used a photo of a paper mache hammerhead shark in my December Daily.
7. Use their handwritten notes
Lisa Ottosson took this photo of her daughter making a phone call to her daddy. Her daughter wrote down her dad's phone number while on the phone, and Lisa saved it and included it on this page.
Lisa Ottosson
Kids love to write love notes to their parents. Lisa saved this one her daughter wrote to her, and used it on a page about herself.
Lisa Ottosson
8. Tuck their art into little envelopes
In this layout, I saved a few love notes my son made me in Junior Kindergarten, and tucked them into a little envelope. My son has autism, and at the time was not talking a whole lot, so these notes were (and are) so precious to me.
My daughter is prone to creative frenzies...I have no idea where she got that trait from! A couple of years ago she made some little puppets with paper, popsicle sticks and tape. When she finished the room and her hair were a disaster (actually, I think her hair was like that before she started). I managed to get a photo, and I've been hanging onto to those puppets ever since. I tucked them into a few vellum envelopes for this layout.
I hope you enjoyed these ideas, and some of your children's art makes it onto your pages.
