Framing Children's Artwork
Whether at camp or at home, kids produce a wealth of wonderful artwork during the summertime, and framing these artistic feats is a great way to foster a love of creating and add a little fresh flair to your décor. To help guide us through the process, we asked Beate Casati of Charlottesville’s La Linea Bella to share her expert advice; here are her recommendations:
- To incorporate your child’s art into your “grown-up” space, choose a more sophisticated or modern gallery-style frame. Then add fabric matting or a liner to give the art an extra pop.
- White frames let the colors in your child’s art and its expressiveness speak for themselves. They also keep a wall from looking too busy.
- Consider using different colors of the same molding/frame when creating an art gallery for your child. This will add a touch of whimsy while keeping your gallery looking unified.
- Think about adding a colored mat (or two) to your child’s art to pick up a color in their room.
- For large collections of children’s art—everyone has a big box of great drawings, right?—and to unify a variety of paper sizes, consider scanning all of your child’s artwork to a 5”x7” format, and framing the whole collection in one large, multi-opening mat and frame.
- Print out a little history of the piece and affix it to the back of the frame so you can re-visit the story behind the art at a later point in time.
- Always use U.V. protective glazing when framing children’s art, since both the papers and colors they use usually fade quickly.
Expert tip from La Linea Bella in Charlottesville, VA. Artwork by Ruby Ford, framed by La Linea Bella.
