Need a really great last minute gift idea? You have the perfect resource right at hand, under your roof, under foot too, most likely. Your kids! A child’s artwork can be a treasured gift for anyone, especially those close to that child.
Children’s artwork is often refreshing in its simplicity and innocence. It doesn’t have to follow any rules to be special. From the modern art look of toddlers, to the stick figures of 4 year olds, so the lollipop trees of kindergarteners, the pieces created by children is treasured because of the relationship, not because of the look, although many of us love it whether we know the particular child or not.
I chose to decorate my kitchen with my children’s art. I bought inexpensive Lucite box frames, which allowed me to easily slip a picture in the front of the cardboard, and then change the pictures at will. The kids glowed with pride seeing their framed pictures. I hung 6 frames in my white-walled kitchen. The bright colors stood out and created an eye-catching whimsical look that gave me energy whenever I was in there.
These frames plus one or more selections of a child’s artwork make a perfect gift for grandmas and grandpas, aunts, uncles etc. The frames come in many sizes and cost less than $10 and can be found at most drug and grocery stores than have a frame section. The artwork, of course, is free!
Other repositories for children’s art are easy to make–online calendars, mugs, mouse pads etc. You can buy thermal coffee cups which allow you to slip any artwork in a decoration around the cup. Another popular holiday option is the homemade garden stone or hand print. Children design their own stone with their name or a theme. Most craft stores carry many inexpensive varieties of these keepsakes.
I enjoyed using my children’s art for gift wrap. At Christmas time, I would cover the table with the end roll of newsprint I’d gotten from the newspaper office. I gave the kids red and green markers, crayons and Christmas stickers and let them scribble and draw. After we finished the background, we’d put Christmas stickers all over it. For another year, I did another variation on the gift wrap theme: old-fashioned potato prints. I cut simple designs in the potatoes, like a tree or a star, and let them dip them in red and green paint. I used special ribbon to complement the children’s unique wrapping paper and to achieve a finished look. Rustic twine worked well when I used brown paper one year. Real cloth ribbon makes any package look spectacular.
Win-win is how I describe using children’s art at Christmas time. We need meaningful gifts to give. Children need to have fun and feel special. All this is accomplished with little cost and great memory-making when we recognize the lasting value of what is right under our noses at home. Children’s art—which is available up to the last minute too, with no shipping charge!
-posted by Donna Detweiler, who is confident that gifts of children’s artwork makes just about anybody’s Christmas day more special.
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