By Dee Archibald
If you’re anything like me you will have a stack of your kids paintings since they started preschool, piling up and taking over your cupboard and you haven’t yet had the heart to put them out in the recycling. Well I have an idea to get that cupboard space back and display all the best bits of their creations in a stylish keepsake for your wall.
You will need: 
- A stack of your clever little persons artwork
- A frame
- A craft knife
- A ruler
- Some scissors
- A tape measure
- A small piece of thick cardboard
Step 1: Measure a perfect 4 by 4 cm square in your cardboard and use the ruler and craft knife to cut it out. You will use it as a little window to scan over each painting until you find a section that you like. Trace around the square with a pencil then cut out with the scissors taking care to cut straight lines so that each square will be almost exact in size. Choose interesting patterns in a colour scheme that works with your surroundings.
Step 2: You will need to decide if the square pattern will go right up to the sides or whether you want a boarder surrounding it (if you go for the boarder you may need to buy a big sheet of card in the colour you want or just use the card that comes with the frame like I did). You will need to measure the desired sides (which will need to divide into 4) and multiply the horizontal edge and the vertical edge together to come up with the square measurement. Divide this number by 4 to get the amount of little squares you will need and begin cutting!
Step 3: Place your card on a table and use the tape measure along one side to line up the corners, once you have that in place sticky tape the measuring tape to the table. This will be your guide for getting the squares in a straight line. Begin pasting each square right to the corners and sticking down.
Step 4: Stick down all four sides first and continue to fill in the middle making sure the pieces are at random in terms of colour and texture so it doesn’t appear flat in parts. Once complete give the glass of your frame a clean before you pop it inside.
