How I organize my paints

I know many people have different ways to organize painting days.  I just pour the paints into little cups with lids.  I get them fairly cheaply from a local restaurant supply store.  The kids share the colors with the kids at their tables.  They mix colors directly onto newspapers.  When the class is finished, they learn to put the lids back on and return them to the counter.  These paints last at least a month in the containers.  When the paint is gone or dried out, I just squeeze out more paint on top.  There is very little waste.  After a couple months, I will end up having to throw away the containers, but not too often.  If the lids are fairly clean, I will reuse the lids too.  I put all the paint cups in a nice box and store them away until the next day we paint. 

What to do with all of your kid's art?

Here is a post that I am putting on my school class website for parents:

Children are prolific artists.  I have found some interesting ways to document your child's art journey and display favorite works of art.



1.  First, you could create a book!  Take photographs of your child's drawings, sculptures and paintings and use a service like walgreens.com to create a photo album.  Many of your child's artworks are already photographed by me on our Artsonia gallery.  You could download the photos from there and put into a book.  I recommend using a regular digital camera to take your photos and then use the editing program on the Walgreens site to crop the photos.  Sure, it takes some time, but you could shoot a whole stack of artwork while watching your favorite tv show.   Older kids can take their own photographs.  If you have access to a scanner, you can use that too, but I find it takes more time and is much more cumbersome. 

Sources:  Howdoesshe.com  and JoJoebi

2.  Rotating display.  Choose your current favorites and hang.  Then, when the artwork is rotated out, decide what to do with it.  Gifts?  Scrapbook?  Store in box?

Use wire strung across a wall.  Attach colorful clips.

Source:  The Wilson World



More displays using clips, wire, boards and magnetic trays.

Source:  Style Files, A Little of This A Little of That, and Laura Winslow
















3.  Frames-- Choose some of your child's favorite artworks to frame.  Go to the thrift store and find a hodge podge of interesting frames.  Spray paint the same color or leave as is. 

Source Ohdeedoh, Kelle Dame

4.  Bulletin Board-- Very easy way to create a rotating display---  cover the bulletin board with a large piece of pretty thin fabric to make it fit in with your decor.

Source:  Lolina.com



6.  Turn it into canvas art--- take photos of your kid's artwork, shrink them and collage them onto a canvas using Mod Podge.

Source: Decor8 blog





7.  Another example of using Mod Podge to secure a child's artwork to a canvas.

   Isn't that gorgeous???

Visit the Cheeky Kitchen blog to see a step-by-step tutorial for this.