How to Display Kids’ Artwork

Featured Pro: Kristan Cunningham
Category: Home Décor
Time: 2:14


KRISTAN CUNNINGHAM: The next time your kids bring home a masterpiece, why not display it in style? I’m Kristan Cunningham, and this is your GMC Trade Secret.

Wouldn’t it be nice if, when our kids were at school or in art class and they were creating their masterpieces, if they thought to themselves, you know, what colors would work in the living room or in the den? Well, they’re not. They’re going to come up with whatever they’re going to come up with. And it might be the shape of a butterfly. It might have glitter on it. It might be really big and it might be really small, and it will always be changing. Your job is then to figure out how to display it so that your kids’ art is up, but do it in a way that’s tasteful and actually works with your aesthetic.

Well, I’ve got three ideas for you. And the best part is, each of these items are things you probably already have anyhow.

First up is clipboards. I like the old-school kind, because they’re about $1.50 and they look really classic – no plastic, no colors, straight-up beige. The best part is they’ve got these clips, which means no holes in the artwork. If a new piece comes home, you clip it up. If then the next day another one comes, you clip up the next one. It’s that easy. And no holes; nothing has been damaged.

So you hang them up in an installation; nice big grid work pattern. Keep them far enough apart so that, if there’s a big piece one week and a small piece the next week, that they’re not all overlapping; done and done, super-easy.

Same idea with hangers, pant hangers. These are the kind that you bend the clip and they come apart. These even have felt, so your kids will feel like their artwork is very, very precious. You snap them. You hang it; same idea. You do it in a grid installation.

Another one is a rod, maybe in keeping with the rods you already have in that space, and clip rings. Same thing – you clip up a new one when the new one comes home, and no holes went into the art. But the cool thing is, if you’ve already got four sets of these in your living room, another one is just going to be in keeping with the aesthetic that you already have. And again, they can slide around. You can make them any size you want and you can trade it out every single day.

I’m Kristan Cunningham, and that’s your GMC Trade Secret about how to display kids’ art.