If you have twenty minutes to spare and a printer, you have to do this amazing gift for the holidays with your child.  Personalized framed art is going to make grandma, or uncle teddy, or whoever it is, so happy.  Seriously, this process is so simple and I have a new fantastic art supply to add to this list of my favorite art supplies.

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Here’s what you’ll need to make this pretty much guaranteed to be super cute framed art piece you can give to a loved one.

You’ll need…

a piece of paper cut to the size of your frame (ours is 8×10)

Kwikstix paint markers (we’re hooked!)

a black and white printed pic of the artist

letter stickers

a frame

Steps

Step 1.

Invite your child to “paint” an entire white piece of paper with Kwikstix paint markers.  I tell the kids, “You can do any design you want.  You’re the artist.  The only rule for this particular painting is that your goal is to cover all the white space on the paper.”  I would stick with a small to medium size paper depending on the age of your child, so it’s not too lofty of a goal to fill the whole paper.

Kwikstix are great because they are actual tempera paint in a marker form.  They go on super smooth and are really easy for little hands. The best part though is that they dry in 90 seconds, literally.  I’m talking no mess.

My daughter got right to work.  We recently learned about Kandinsky’s concentric circles, which you can see represented here in her work.

This part was done independently. My daughter is 4 years old and she found it easy to manage the paint markers. If the paint stick got low inside it was easy for her to roll up more, just like chapstick.

We decided to add a little neon pink to a few white spots after Didi was done painting her circles.  Sometimes choosing another medium when your child says they are done is a great way to keep them engaged and continue their work.

 The Kwikstix dried super fast so we got out the blow dryer for the other paint. Once the paint was totally dry it was time to do the personalizing.

Step 2.

Get out the letter stickers and a cut out black and white printout of your child.  I like to make a silhouette around the pic to add interest.  I kind of wish I cut out the one you see here a little more but oh well.  It’s still super cute.

I instructed Didi to pick an area on the top of her painting to add her name in stickers so there was plenty of room for her picture.  You can add additional stickers, glitter, confetti, you name it.  We kept ours pretty simple mostly because we only had about 20 minutes.

Didi wasn’t so keen on adding her picture at first because it covered her art, so we didn’t add glue.  We just placed her picture on the art and carefully placed my favorite ikea tarsta frame on top.  If you can’t get to ikea, I also love these plastic box frames.  They are so old school but still look modern and fresh.

As soon as I put the frame on the personalized art it totally came alive and Didi decided it was ok to stay in the frame.  She was super pleased with it.

I was totally in love with her art work so I begged her to keep it in the studio and she said yes.  Yay!

I actually bought a bunch of frames and I’m going to have my girls make a few for different members of our family for the holidays.  I know everyone will love these.

I hope you like this idea and give it a try.  Happy Holidays! xo, Meri

This post is sponsored by Kwikstix but all opinions are my own.