She's Crafty, Part 2

The girls started going to Mother's Day Out in January, and soon therafter, the art projects started coming home. Our fridge was covered, a look we don't particularly care for. I don't like clutter; Geoff hates it. I wanted to come up with a way to display the kids' art in our home, so I started looking online. There were lots of different ideas. I decided I wanted to hang empty frames in a group and somehow attach the artwork to the frames. One website suggested replacing the glass in the frame with wood and affixing small clothespins or other clips to it to hold the art. I almost went with that, but two of the frames I was using (they were hanging out unused in our guest room closet) were rather large and capable of holding two pieces at once, so I didn't want to limit my configurations. I decided magnets were the way to go.

I started by painting the frames themselves. I painted those black.

Then, I painted the glass with magnetic paint. I believe I used four coats. I should have used a couple of more coats of paint to make the magnets stick a little better, but I was impatient to see my finished product. Whenever I run my stick vac in the kitchen, I have to take all the artwork off the frames. Otherwise, the wind generated by the vacuum blows the pictures off and the magnets fly all over the place.

That brings me to the magnets. While the above pieces were drying, I assembled my magnets. I bought two packages of high-powered magnets and some acrylic jewels.

Then, I used my glue gun to attach the jewels to the magnets.

Please excuse my need for a nail job in this photo.

Just a helpful tip. You have to place these magnets far far away from each other. Otherwise, they attract each other and when they connect, they will fly across the room.

After the magnetic paint on the glass was dry, I painted over it with acrylic paint.

I used four different colors to match my kitchen.

I needed to do several coats to cover the black of the magnetic paint.

Once those were dry, I assembled the frames, hung them on the wall, and attached the artwork to them. I was very proud of myself.

Now, as new artwork comes home from school, I can rotate the old stuff out.

Kathleen loves helping me change out her masterpieces.

As you can see, I did this project back in March. Hence, the shamrock picture.

This project cost me a little over $30. I had frames already, so those were free. The magnetic paint was $20, the package of acrylic jewels was about $1, the magnets were $3 or $4 per package of four. The bottles of acrylic paint were $1 each, but I think I already had the yellow paint on hand.