Display Kids Art with Clothes Pins in Old Frames

This is a common and decorative way to rotate art on your kids walls with some easy-to-come-by materials:

-Jewelry Wire

-2 Thumb Tacks or nails about the same size

-A hammer 

-2 clothes Pins

-Yardstick

-Pencil

-Standard sheet of paper that your child draws or paints art on
-A picture frame without glass or a backing.  Make sure the frames are at least several inches larger than the standard sized paper that your child is drawing or painting on.  I like the look of old frames that you can find at yard sales or thrift shops.

-Jewelry pliers (Diagonal cutting jewelry pliers work well, if you need to buy some)

Step One: Center the paper within the bare frame on your work surface.  Have the frame faced down.  Get your paper and add 2 clothes pins to the top of the paper and lay it down inside of the frame to figure out how much space you will need to give (so that the clothes pins are also within the frame).  

Step 2:Take a yardstick and line it across the mouth of each clothes pin to figure out where the wire will need to be stretched.  Make your pencil marks where the yardstick lays across the back of the frame, making sure that everything is even.

Step 3: Cut a piece of jewelry wire with the pliers after stretching the wire across the frame where you made your marks.  Be sure to leave at least an inch of extra wire hung off the sides of the frame on either end.  

Step 4: Twist the excess amount of wire from one end around a thumb tack about 2 times, and then twist the excess wire around the loose wire like in the photo below.  (You will repeat this step on the other side of the wire, but first do Step 5...).

Step 5: Press the thumb tack in the center of one of your pencil markings.  If the wood is firm, you may have to use the hammer to get the tack in.  Of course, you can always use small nails if the tacks just won't do the job.  Pull the wire across to the other side and repeat Step 4.  Make sure your wire is tight enough for the art to hang on it.  You may have to twist more wire around the thumb tack to tighten it.

Step 6: Hang the frame on the wall like you would a picture frame.  You may need to use the ruler to add some nail holes if you just want to hang the frame off of two nails.  In my case, I had a cinder block wall to work with, so I added more jewelry wire with tacks to hang it from a ceiling beam.

I added several of these random frames on the walls of my art studio where I teach art to children ages 2-6.  I rotate the work, and I also started hanging them to dry by pinning a ruler to the bottom of the art with extra clothes pins.  To get a visual on what I mean by this, check out my post from my artist blog here:
Drying Watercolor Paintings on Display

Thanks so much for your support by checking out my blog!  I hope you learned something practical and simple!

~Angelique Buman

Artsistic Yarn Bottles- Fun for Kids, too!

This post is somewhat of an extension from my previous post on crafting yarn bottles, but this time I'm explaining it for you to do with your toddlers!  In comparison to my last post, you can see in the photos that the kids truly put their own twist by wrapping the yarn every which way on the bottles.  I was delighted to see how great they turned out.  These bottles were done by my students in my after-school art program, Little Wonders of Wonderland.  It was a small group that day, about 7 kids, and it was a good thing since they needed some individual help getting started with the tacky glue.  

Prep Material
-Have a variety of clean bottles and jars to choose from, such as mayonnaise jars, jelly jars and soda bottles
-Tacky glue or Mod Podge (or Elmer's glue might be a safer or cheaper option if you have a lot of kids to tend to)
-Lids or cups to put the glue in.  For classrooms ages 2-6, you may want to consider having the glue already squirted out on the lids, oh and you will find they will need a generous amount!
-Old paint brushes, large enough to make painting large areas with glue easy. 
-The kids should probably wear old t-shirts to keep clothes free of glue (I use adult sized shirts for my kids) 
-Plastic or paper should definitely be taped to the tables to prevent the table from getting too sticky
-Multi colored yarn.  Have lots of pieces of yarn pre-cut for the kids, about 2 feet long, at least ten or so for each kid. Of course, if you wan to add an extra step you can have them cut their own.
-Optional- small cups of water (tuna cans would be a good size, actually) for wetting fingers as the kids will probably get sticky fingers and will periodically need some relief.

Instructions
-Have the kids throw old t-shirts on, let them choose their bottles and start painting the glue on the bottles with old brushes.  Depending on your situation such as time or how large the classroom is, you may want to help in the process of painting the bottles with glue, since this can be time consuming for the little ones.  Tacky glue can especially be a little harder to work with since it is so thick.
-Offer piles of pre-cut multi-colored yarn for the kids to choose from.  Show them how they can wrap the bottles from bottom to top (or top to bottom) and let them get creative!  Let them know that they will get sticky as they are handling the bottles and to dip their fingers in the water occasionally.
-You will likely need to wait several hours before the bottles are dry and ready to go home

These bottles look so pretty on display next to warm lights.  They would also make great vases or pencil holders.  Thanks for reading and have fun making art with the kids!  

 To learn more about the Little Wonders of Wonderland, you can check out tour blog or artist website:

Little Wonders of Wonderland Blog

Little Wonders of Wonderland Artist Website