Tomorrow we open our Etsy store

My sister-in-law Katie has been thinking about adding an art wall to her play room for months.  Tip Junkie had an entry "How to display your child's artwork" just in time!

She had considered a magnet wall like the one that took me a year to finish and still isn't done I did for the boys but in the end the simple board with clips was neat, cute, cheap and easy.  We hoped.  I found cute art boards on etsy for $34.  CUTE but only three clips and expensive!  So we set out to make it ourselves.

The total project cost: $70-80 for four six-foot art boards
Total project time: About 5.5 hours (including: shopping (Home Depot and Michael's), poop detail, nursing the baby (Katie's Job, not mine), eating dinner, breaking up fights, cleaning crayons off the table (compliments of Keith and Taleen), making milkshakes and of course five little helpers)
We had a lot of fun.  I love my sister-in-law and it was so nice to spend time with her today.
Here's the project details.
We bought two twelve-foot paint grade baseboard trim pieces.  No painting!  We went on a treasure hunt to find someone at Home Depot to cut them in half and really that never gets tiresome.

Then we went to Michael's to find the perfect paper for three girls and a boy.  We found CUTE stuff.  Luckily the fire didn't happen until after we were done with the paper.... it isn't a party until something catches on fire!

 I thought that these decoupaged clips featured on Blue Cricket Designs were a perfect way to take the art boards to the next level.  So we got out the MOD PODGE once again (YES!!! you can applaud if you like).  This was a really easy one, cut 32 strips of paper the same size as the clips and go for it.

 

Look, do you like it?  Taleen does!  Her's are the Green Ones!

While the clips are drying (and you are warning children every five seconds not to touch the wet clips) we laid out the boards.  Each board got eight clips and a name.  This meant measuring... not exactly my long suit so I was sweating it.  I kept waiting to find out that one board was the wrong size or something but it all worked out.  This never happens when I spend time with a tape measurer.

Once we had the names on the boards we mod podged the board and while that dried we added the buttons to the clips.  Then we glued the clips to the boards.  I didn't get a great shot of any of Teegan's board but his clips are black with little fire and rescue vehicles.  We didn't get his clips on because we needed an extra "E" which we scrapped together with an "F" and mommy ingenuity.
Here are the girl's!  LOVE THEM!  When Katie gets them up I will get a shot of all of them (with art!).  Great project.  We rocked it.

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