If you have little budding artists around your house, then you know how easy it is to accumulate piles of pictures and artwork. The coloring book pages I can part with, but the freestyle drawings that show so much imagination, I can never seem to throw away.
For example, in this picture, I was told that Elsa was going to see Jesus in heaven and her brothers were having a birthday party with cake. Meanwhile, Ariel (from The Little Mermaid) was eating ice cream with sprinkles.
There really was no way I could get rid of this one.
Since our house looked like this one day, though, I knew something had to be done.
In order to get my walls back, I wanted to come up with another way to display her artwork.
At one time, I hung them in frames in our living room.
But since I couldn’t keep up with the supply, I needed another way.
The kids’ room has a cheap, white bookcase that I felt comfortable experimenting with.
I decided to line the back of it with pictures and seal it down.
To begin, I removed the back of the bookcase. For those of you with nice, expensive furniture, you won’t be able to do this 🙂
I laid the backing on the floor (with the inside facing up) and arranged the pages of artwork on it.
When I got the art arranged how I wanted, I began removing the pages one at a time and applying glue under them.
Once they were all glued down, I painted another layer of glue (I used my DIY Mod Podge) on top of them to seal it all down.
It was hard not to get some of the pages to pucker no matter how much I smoothed them out. Since I’m not a perfectionist (at all!), I was ok with it. Once the panel is put back on behind the shelves again, it’s not noticeable.
The panel folded a little in two places so I nailed the panel back onto the bookcase while it was still a little wet. This allowed it to dry really flat.
Then I put the shelves back in and started filling the bookcase back up with toys and books.
Now my daughter’s artwork is a permanent part of our home. If she keeps this hobby up, I may need to make wallpaper out of her artwork next!
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Maggie May's 
That is such a cute idea! We have used their artwork in frames, on canvas, in books, and of course on the fridge but never on the back of a bookcase. Great idea!
Thanks! Sounds like you have artwork all over the house, too 🙂
What a cool idea!! We’re on the market for bookshelves for my daughter’s room and this will be a great way to customize them.
Yes, and if you’re going to customize them, you can buy inexpensive ones, which is a bonus 🙂
Ok now this is an awesome idea!!! I might just have to do this with my daughters art work!
She will love seeing it on her shelves, i’m sure 🙂
Seriously, where do you come up with this stuff?! I have a few pieces of artwork I am hanging on to as well because I can’t seem to let them go. I made a little Father’s Day gift out of some of them that I was pretty happy with (on the blog soon-haha!), but I still have some more. I would love to do this, it looks so awesome!
Wow, you are on the ball getting your father’s day gifts done already!! Can’t wait to see what you did!
This is a great idea! I also really love the picture frames you used to use. My 5 year old is constantly creating masterpieces and we don’t dare to get rid of any of them 🙂
I know…I can’t image how many hundreds we’ll end up with by the time they are grown 🙂
This is such a great idea!! What a greative way to show off your kids artwork
Thanks…yes, it’s definitely fun to see it peeking through the shelves!
That’s an awesome idea. That bookshelf is now a valuable keepsake!
yes! 🙂
I love this idea! Very unique! I would only worry that other kids (like a playdate) would think it is okay to write on the furniture. I guess then you could cover the outside of the bookcase too! Thanks for sharing!
This is a great idea!♥♥
🙂
What a creative way to put some of those masterpieces to a good use!
They pile up fast!
I love this! I have been looking for something to do with my children’s artwork, and this is the perfect idea.
Great 🙂
Pinned! My daughter’s walls are covered with her artwork and I sort of gave up… Until now! 😉 Lovely!
That idea with the bookcase is just gorgeous,i framed a couple of my daughters art but I like this as you can use a lot more of art doing the bookshelf way.Thanks for sharing 🙂
You’re welcome. It is definitely permanent…but actually I guess you could put the art on the back side of the back piece and if you get sick of it, just flip it over and it’s white again. I’m just thinking out loud over here 🙂
Wonderful 🙂
This is such a cute idea!
Thanks 🙂
I did something like this but I used 2 sided tape and put them on another paper that fit the shelf . then I used Velcro dots and made it so I could change it easy. I love this.
That’s a great idea… that would be nice to be able to swap pictures out!