It's no secret that many of the paintings preschoolers bring home are blobby messes. Occasionally they get focused and create a house, family, rainbow or something else instantly recognisable, but we've also had plenty of pinky-purple streaky things that when you say, "that's lovely, what is it" you get the eye roll and the "a princess castle of course." Very occasionally Mimi is honest enough to admit "it's nothing; just colours I like." I'm secretly living for the day she comes out with, "oh that horrible thing; I was simply trying to clean the paint brushes when the teacher ohed and ahed and hung it up to dry; hmph!"What do you do with all this art? At our house big sheets are set aside to use as wrapping paper. Small wonders are framed in a rotating gallery in their room. Others are hung on wire in the kitchen for a month and then stored in a special box. Not so-great ones we reuse as drawing paper. Seriously uninspiring ones are immediately slipped discretely into the recycling bin. (Admit it - you do it too!)
Mums I know also photograph them, place them in plastic sleeves and binders, and/or frame the best of the best. All of these are great ideas, especially if you have the space and time to curate a gallery or archive a library.
Another alternative is to get crafty. Some of the messiest paintings that come home, are also filled with wonderful colours; uninhibited, dense, free, and thickly applied. Whilst the painting in it's entirety is not that pretty, when cut into thin strips, the strips are gorgeous! These strips can then be added to birthday cards, Christmas cards, collages, scrapbook pages or woven into any other craft project you can imagine.
So next time you're headed to the recycling bin, ask yourself; would this look cool cut up, is there another way I could recycle this? If the answer is maybe; have a go and see what you get... you can still go to the bin later!
