It’s about to happen!

If you have school-aged children…you know what I mean:  the onslaught of papers is about to begin!

My go to solution for dealing with all that artwork and school work is the three ring binder system that I blogged about oh-so-many months ago. Super simple…but it doesn’t give the artwork it’s day-in-the-sun. So, here’s a new idea, a not so simple idea, but a new one none-the-less.

Collage

This, my friends, is a giant artwork collage, created using a 36″ x 36″ stretched canvas. I wanted some big artwork for our basement family room, and thought it would be fun to make a collage using some of my favorite artwork made by my daughter Kailea. I made this last winter as a possible project for the memorabilia chapter of the book. (We went with something a lot, uh, smaller and simpler but still involving kid’s artwork.)

Anyway, I don’t know about where you are…but it’s super hot here and this would be a great way to pass some time indoors in the air, and get some of last year’s artwork taken care of. All you need to make this is: a 36 x 36 stretched canvas (I got mine on-line at a going out of business sale), a really big bottle of decoupage, a foam brush (or two), a whole slew of kids artwork and an appreciation for spending the day with sticky fingers. To make it, I simply adhered the artwork to the canvas with decoupage. I cut some of the art to fit where I wanted it to go. Once all the artwork was in place, I added a top coat of decoupage. Viola! Eight hours later a collage. 😉

In the process of creating this I discovered a few things:

1) Creating a collage is really not as easy as it looks. I become keenly aware midstream that I had no idea what I was doing. But oh well, it was a lot of fun.

2) It’s not a great idea to ask your husband’s opinion about your collage if you don’t really want it.

3) Art created with marker runs when covered with decoupage. It can be a cool effect…but if that would bother you, stick to art pieces made with crayon.

Alright…someone asked for a project, so here it is! It’s sort of organizing because now you have something to do with all that artwork. Right? And it should keep you busy for a while…so I can go put the finishing touches on that organizing project I told you about. And then, I will post pictures. I promise.

Have a great weekend!