Toot Toot Tuesday-Kids Art Gallery

Wowzee! We had well over 100 links yesterday, I have barely had the chance to skim the surface of all the fun stuff on that list! Thanks so much for all the inspiration, and of course for making the world cuter!

Todays tutorial came out of a need for my kids to have more room to hang their art work, I get at least 4-5 "masterpieces" a day that my kids would be mortified if they saw me throwing them all away. I have file folders for each of them that I save my absolute favorites in, let the kids pick out a couple of their favorites to hang on a board I made for them eons ago, but I have to hang them. They needed something more accessible, and easy to use for them.

They also have a small collection of CD-Rom games for their computer that seem to get scattered around in their computer drawer without the cases, and I needed a way to store them better.

I went to the good old Home Depot and picked up a 1x2, for less than a dollar, came home and sawed it in half for 2 four foot boards.

Then I painted all but the backside black, if I was making these for the kids' rooms I would have put some cute scrapbook paper on the fronts, but since they are hanging in the common hall of the kids loft, I needed something more age and gender neutral...plus I just like black.While I was waiting for the paint to dry, I took some ordinary clothes pins and took them apart like so...just slid the top off......and then I have these two pieces.With the bottom of the pin (the side with the spring), I used a little bit of wood glue and secured 1 pin at every 8 inches, for a total of 5. Then using the hubbys power tools drilled holes in them and screwed them into the board with itty bitty little screws. I'm not sure of the size, but I'm sure if you asked someone at the Home Depot for some itty bitty little screws, they could point you in the right direction :).Then with my ratty old sponge brush (seriously need to stop being so cheap and splurge on some more) I painted the whole pin black.And because I couldn't stand the fact that the back of the pin was still wood color I went ahead and painted those as well, even though no one will ever see those.Then using some solid colored scrapbook paper, I mod podged some on the second piece of the clip, painted the sides and back and slid it back into place-distressing the edges a bit with the black paint.Then I hung it up in my kids' hall along with the other higher hanging devices, but this one the kids can reach, and have already filled it with some of their favorites. I think I will make a couple of these up, in some fun colors and prints and give them to my kids' friends for their birthdays with a box of crayons and some paper. It was really easy, and REALLY cheap, and I think could be really cute.For the CD-rom games I took them out of their cases, put them in some protectors and hung them here above the kids' computer, so they can easily see the games, get the games, and put away the games.

Love the feeling of getting something like this cleaned up-just feels like a little weight has been lifted off.