Create a Preschool Art Gallery

If there’s one thing most preschoolers don’t suffer from, it’s a lack of creativity. And while there’s nothing cheerier than a refrigerator covered with brightly colored drawings, sooner or later most parents run out of space in the kitchen. This is a great, inexpensive way for your child to display her artwork in bedrooms and playrooms, and there’s room for everything from large paintings to oddly shaped collages.

What You Will Need:

• Roll of wide, heavy ribbon, long enough to stretch along one wall of the room
• Scissors
• Tape measure
• Hammer
• Nails
• Large Binder Clips

What to Do:

1. First, measure the wall where you and your child would like the “gallery” to go, and make sure the ribbon is long enough. It needs to be as long as the wall a three foot safety margin. Cut the ribbon to fit, setting any excess aside.  Your ribbon can be any color you or your child would like it to be; you can coordinate it to match a room or you can pick your favorite color, etc.
2. Knot the ribbon at every two-foot interval. Each knot should be loose and wide rather than tight. You’ll need to fit a nail through the knot to attach the ribbon to the wall, and you want them to look pretty. It’s okay if there’s extra ribbon at each end; you can trim this away when you’re done.
3. Choose the height where you and your child want the ribbon to be attached. Keep in mind that the ribbon will hold only the top of the artworks, so the actual pictures will hang lower than the ribbon. Attach the ribbon six inches ABOVE your, or your child’s, eye level and then the paintings should be right where you want them to be.
4. Have your child mark the height with a pencil.
5. Starting at one end of the wall, hammer a nail through each knot. Proceed down the wall, letting the ribbon droop gracefully between knots. When you’re done, help your child pull the knots tight around the nail-heads and trim away any excess ribbon at the ends.
6. Use binder clips to attach the artwork to the ribbon in between the knots that holding the ribbon to the wall. You and your child have just made an instant art gallery – and when the artist changes her style, all you have to do is switch the clip!