Kid Painted Mats for Frames

I'm still working on sprucing up my husband's office.  After adding plants we're now working on adding color and photos.

After a quick trip to target I came home with some really cute frames that I thought would work great.  Problem?  They were too white and boring (we're trying to avoid this -- being as all the walls are super white and boring already.)

I must of had thoughts of this post when I decided how I wanted enhance these frames.

But I decided to change it up.  Instead of cutting out paper, I decided it would be a good idea to just use painters tape, clearing off sections and just to have the kids paint right on the mat.  Pretty good idea, right?  Wrong. 

It was all good, until I put one of my tape pieces in the wrong place, then needed to lift it up, to move it to a different location.  And then the mat lifted up and a chunk of it came off...ahh... I slowly took off all the rest of the tape pieces and decided to head back over to plan A.

Cut out triangles.

Using thick watercolor paper, I cut out many, many triangles and made a unique triangle plan for each mat.

They looked pretty cool being just white, but we're going for color here, people. 

So I gathered up the sweet children and let them use my fancy water colors and let them have at it.

The only real direction I gave them was to use the water before switching colors.

Each of them did a really excellent job.

It's amazing how well everybody gets along so well, while their creative minds are going.

Once everyone was done, I let each triangle dry.

The next day, using tacky craft glue, I painted the glue on the back of each triangle and placed it on the mat.  I wanted the glue to go on evenly and to each edge, thus the use of the paint brush.

All done.

The Finished Products.

Hmm, anyone care to guess where he teaches?

Then I also added this frame.  This shows all the different national parks we've been to as a family.  I've labeled them for those of you who don't know your national parks quite as well.  It does show a couple of repeats and extra ones, so I can add to it as times goes by.

 And lastly I updated this cute picture box.

I can't wait to hang them up on the walls!