How To Best Display Kids' Artwork With These 23 Creative Ideas

Our kids create so many amazing works of art it can be hard to know how to handle it all! When you can't see the fridge for finger paintings, and your coffee-table is piled high with mini-masterpieces, it's time to start curating your kids' art and displaying it in the best possible way.

Giving our kids the pride of place above our mantlepiece or next to the artwork we've bought builds their confidence in their creative talent and helps them visualise themselves as real artists.

As well as boosting their self-belief, displayed in the right way, your kids' artwork can actually be a brilliant addition to an adult art collection and bring a sense of warmth and quirkiness to any home.

If you've filled your walls and still want to keep your children's art safe, check out our blog post on storing kids art for some great ideas.

Build the Perfect Gallery Wall

Creating an art wall can be a brilliant way to fill up a large blank wall in your house, and the perfect way to showcase lots of your kids' art in one place.

When you assemble all the artwork together and hang them up, the overall display becomes a lot more important than the individual artwork, which is great for drawings and paintings with fun colours and textures.

Our top gallery wall tips:

Mixed Art Display

Gallery wall art displays work really well when there is a range of different sizes of artwork and frames collected together. Don't be afraid to chop something up small, or display something big, it'll all add to the overall gallery feel.

Creative Colour Palette

Creating balance with a gallery wall is important so it does not overwhelm the room, and it works great when you choose to go for a colour scheme with the art you pick.

Decide if you want a wall that is black and white works well with pops of colour, natural tones or bright primary colours - whatever you pick will make your wall feel more curated and help the different art sit well together.

Matching Frame Aesthetic

Choose frames that are all the same colour - or paint all your frames different colours can be a fun way to pull the wall together. Once a drawing or painting is framed, it feels more important, and your kids' art will suddenly feel elevated.

Out-of-the-Box Artworks

Start thinking about art in a much broader sense and your display will instantly feel more exciting. A special leaf collected on a walk with grandad, a scribbled note to mum about dinner - beautiful memories make beautiful art that will make you fall in love with your home gallery.

Pop-up Gallery

If you don't want to keep your kids artwork on the walls forever, why not host a pop-up gallery? Cover a room with as much as you can fit in, and invite friends and family to come and marvel at the amazing masterpieces. You'll boost your child's confidence and show them how proud you are of their work!

Hanging Stick Decoration

If you haven't got an outdoor area to showcase your hanging mementoes, why not collect some long sticks, pop them in a vase, and display your hanging artworks that way. These look great on coffee tables!

Start Loving Clip-on Frames

Let your kids decide what art is wall-worthy, by sticking empty frames low enough that they're within their reach. Glue some pegs to the top, and they can attach new pictures they make!

This is a really fun way to display kids artwork that they get to be in charge of - you never know, you might end up sparking the excitement of a budding art curator!

Coat Hanger Frames

If you don't have spare frames, trouser coat hangers can work just as well to display kids artwork. Just pop some coat hangers from low-hanging hooks, and display away.

Clipboard Frames

Another great art display for your home where your kids can choose the artwork is using clipboards to display. Position 3 or 4 equally apart in a straight line for a fun art display.

Use Lots and Lots of Boxes

Working out a way to display your kids' art without it feeling like clutter can be tricky, so we love the idea of creating a space for box shelves to house any art that isn't so easy to display.

Simply take a range of small boxes you don't need - wooden food crates or hardy shoe boxes work great - and paint them all the same colour.

Attach them to the wall with some picture pins, and you can place cumbersome kids artwork inside the boxes to create an exciting home art display.

Magnetic Artwork

Create an extension of your fridge door by painting a large square of magnetic paint where you'd like to showcase your kids art. Attach drawings and paintings using magnets, and move around as you please.

Hanging Painting Display

Create an easy artwork display by hanging a piece of string from two picture-hooks. Use pegs to attach paper artwork for a fun unique design.

Hanging Artwork Tree

Small, oddly shaped things that you want to keep and display can look amazing if you add a hanging loop and decorate the branches of trees in your garden.

Artists Pin-board

Some of my favourite types of home centre around big family pin-boards, where art and notes and successes can be displayed for visitors to marvel at.

Creating a place where kids can take part in displaying their artwork, and a dynamic wall for your whole family to use to display what's important to them, can be a great way to bond and share as a family.

All you need to create this fun display is a large piece of corkboard and some pins. We recommend the bigger the better to create a clean statement in your home.

Artwork Shelf

We are obsessed with artwork shelves to showcase framed pictures, and it's as easy as putting up a thin shelf (you can buy them from most homeware shops now) and stacking a variety of different sized framed pictures to create an arty feature.

Large Picture Display

If you have lots of huge artworks that your kids have created, and not enough space to fit them all, why not take photos of your favourites, scale them down and print them as small-scale versions? Three or four massive paintings look brilliant printed A5 size and hung in matching frames as a display.
 

If you're not too attached...

These ideas are fun for repurposing your children's paintings to display in uniquely creative ways!

Decoupage Furniture

For an instant upgrade on any drab looking furniture you have lying around, why not decoupage some of your family artwork for a bright and colourful update! Decoupaging is just sticking paper down with glue onto your surface, so you'll need to find some artwork that's fun and colourful.

Cut the art into squares or shapes that can easily wrap around the piece of furniture you've chosen, and use Mod Podge or similar glue to stick the paper down. Cover over with another layer of glue once it's all stuck to give a varnished finish.

Birthday Cards

Chop up any fun paintings your kids have created, and stick them to the front of birthday cards for relatives! The family will love receiving their own little masterpiece, and it's a great way to repurpose art!

Wrapping Paper

Big paintings on thin paper work amazingly as wrapping paper. If your kids are giving someone a homemade gift, why not wrap it in their homemade wrapping paper too for an extra special experience!

Make Collages

Chop up pieces of multi-coloured drawings and paintings, and let your children make new pictures with the pieces! Just glue them on new paper to create endless fun designs.

Paper Chain

Funky coloured paintings make great paper chains - just chop them into strips, and loop together for quick, fun party decorations.