- my iParenting
- quick clicks
- home style today articles
- home style today q&a
- traveling today articles
- traveling today q&a
- community & groups
- research baby names
- prepare a birth plan
- content channels
- ip channel rss feeds
- read birth stories
- read parenting stories
- recommended books
- e-newsletters
- safety recalls
- ip diaries
- ip store
- mom of the month
- dad of the month
- editor's letter
- letters to the editor
From Our Sponsors
- e-newsletters
- Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters
- award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
Picture Perfect
Displaying Children's Artwork By Laura Paul
Most parents want to preserve the memories of their children's earliest artistic attempts even if their little Picasso is still drawing stick figures. Unfortunately, they often find ketchup and splotches of dried food on the finger painting masterpiece taped to the refrigerator door.
Mary Kessinger, owner of Mountaineer Custom Framing in St. Albans, W. Va., says her clients bring her a variety of items to preserve. One mother wanted to frame a handprint. Her child's teacher had painted a stem and two leaves, and the flower was the child's hand. For another client, a mother with twins, they took the child's outfits, baby socks, baby shoes and rattles, framing them as a keepsake.
"There always seems to be two or three very special pieces that a child will produce through the years," Kessinger says. "About the only two choices you have is to stick them in a cardboard box where every once in a while you get them out and smile and think, 'Oh, how sweet that was.' Or, you can put them in protective, acid-free matting and backing so that they look nice for years and years and then use them in your home as part of your d袯r to enjoy them all of the time."
When it comes time to choose a color for the frame and matting, it's important to consider the d袯r of the room as well as the colors in the painting itself. "Generally artwork children produce tend to have primary colors so we stay with that," Kessinger says. "If we go neutral at all it will just be for the top matte, maybe to give the parents more options of where to hang it. We try to make the piece look good and let the piece dictate what matte and frame it gets."
She says metal frames are particularly popular for children's artwork because they come in a variety of colors.
However, it's not always necessary to frame a child's illustrations. Cornell says some parents pin their child's work to the wall. Since the pieces are just paper, the parent can change the pieces as often as they want.