If I had a million dollars...

(If I had a million dollars)

I would buy you some art

(a Picasso or a Garfunkel)

-Barenaked Ladies, "If I Had a Million Dollars"

Since having kids, my interest in home decor has changed significantly. I no longer have time to watch HGTV, and I consider Handy Manny tools to be appropriate living room accessories. But we did do something really cool in the decor department:

An art wall in our dining room!

We've been wanting a better way to display kid art. Old method (shoving the daycare treasures into a cabinet with no date, no organization, and certainly no identification to who produced said works) really just wasn't going to cut it for the long haul. On our last IKEA trip, we got a couple of things that help to showcase our little artists-in residence.

First came framing the painting that Jay and Luke did for Derek's birthday, a fine acrylic on newsprint done via q-tips. Nothing but high quality stuff here! It was supposed to be a surprise, but of course you-know-who decided he couldn't hold in the secret. One morning at breakfast, he whispered to Derek, "Daddy c'mere!" Derek leaned over and Jay pressed his little nose into his ear and said, "I've got a secret! We painted you a picture!" Surprise, surprise.

Anyway, it is a cool picture:

So cool, in fact, that we tricked my aunt into believing we'd actually bought it! (Of course, the scrawly JAY at the bottom kinda sorta gave it away.) Anyway, it's hanging in our entryway and it makes a nice little happy welcome when we come in the door now.

Then we got super fancy with our art display and hung curtain wires with little clips that are just perfect for rotating displays.

Clockwise from top left:

American flag, construction paper collage, JMF

Fish with painter's tape scales, JMF

Crayon on construction paper, LMF

Chalk masterpiece, LMF

"It Looks like an Angel," White paint smoosh, JMF

Red & Orange tempera paint, JMF

Green Monster, JMF

A Tornado, JMF (the scribbles got circular the week they talked about the weather at daycare!)

Such talent we have in this household! In all seriousness, I really do like having a place to show stuff for a little while and then change it out. We'd planned to put it in the hallway where it would be a much larger space for hanging more stuff. But our main hallway already has all of my black & white family photos, which I really love and had no intention of moving elsewhere. Plus, by putting the kid art front & center, you can actually see it!

Derek says that we should do like fancy restaurants do with their art - put a tiny price tag for some unreasonable amount in the corner of each one. Priceless, I say. Priceless.

So, I was really proud of the artistic talents of my little ones, when THIS came home from daycare:

What is it, you might ask? Well, dear readers, you tell me. First one to correctly identify what it is and what it's designed to be used for will win a signed Jay Foster original.

(This should be good.)