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With kiddos that just finished 1st grade, kindergarten, and preschool, we get A LOT of art. Although we can’t possibly keep it all, we like to pick the best pieces to hang and view for a few weeks. One of the areas of our house that gets the most comments when people come to visit us is our display art wall.
Children’s Art Wall Using Ikea Curtain Wire and Clips
How did we create the art wall?
It is really such a simple wall but makes a big impact! It is hanging right in our kitchen next to our breakfast table meaning we get to see it every day. For us, this totally works because we love to enjoy the projects. I think that this might be too “cluttered” for some design styles, but the wall would also look great in an office, toy room, or kid’s bedroom.
We used the IKEA DIGNITET curtain wire and IKEA RIKTIG curtain hook with clip to create our fun art wall. However, there are definitely other versions you can find like the one here and here if you don’t have a local IKEA or ability to ship to your location. We are fortunate to have a local IKEA in Phoenix so we picked them up right in store.
We chose to hang four levels so that the display goes nearly all the way to the ceiling with the lowest level short enough for the kids to reach. The wires are much longer than the space that we filled so you could also do two or three levels with a longer space.
How do we decide what goes on the art wall, what we keep, and what gets trashed?
I know that some of you might be panicking that I just said the word “trashed”. I know some of you probably keep EVERYTHING.
Here’s the thing… There will likely never be a time where future you wishes you had every single piece of art that your children created. There will also likely never be a time where THEY wish you kept everything. They will probably be happy with a few key precious pieces.
With that opinion stated, we obviously don’t keep everything that comes home. Sometimes this is 10 or 15 items per day between our oldest three—thank goodness the baby is not doing a significant amount of art—and that is just way too many to keep/file/organize/manage.
Here is our process:
- Collect all art, papers, and creations when we get home each day
- Decide if any are extra cute/creative/fun and have earned a home on the art wall
- Hang on the art wall with an available clip right then
- Review remaining art to decide if any other items should be kept (but not be hung on the art wall) and place them in our mail file for sorting later
- Recycle any art, papers, or creations that don’t make the cut
How to do we keep the wall organized?
Well…. sometimes it looks great and organized and sometimes…. well, sometimes it is really full. We try to go through all the art on the wall at least every few months to keep it from getting too crazy cluttered. We definitely make it a point to re-review items on the wall if we run out of clips!
Do you have an art wall? How do you decide what projects to keep? We would love to hear from you!
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Such a fun wall!