Easy Gifts on a Budget V--Using Kids' Art

A friend recently asked me for some tips on transferring kids' art to fabric for gifts. There is pretty much nothing more awesome than little kids' drawings and writing, and there are so many ways to use them to create gifts. Here are a few:
I can't remember where I saw this idea, but so easy! You just need an acrylic frame and some post-its and ta da! Adorable and useful desk accessory!
One suggestion I'd make is to make a little splurge on good supplies. If you only make one art supply purchase, I'd make it Caran d'Ache wax crayons. You get the same vibrant colors on colored papers as you do with regular oil pastels, but without the smearing or mess. This is especially nice if you plan to do any scanning or copying--nothing worse than scanning oil pastels. Okay, maybe laminating small original pieces of kids' artwork is worse. :) But Caran d'Ache are so fantastic and worth their price . Check out Nancy Coffelt's picture books for examples to show kids of how they can use them. I think she uses oil pastels, but Caran d'Ache can produce similar results. Clara's drawing above (this one is called Bandaid Man) was made with Caran d'Ache, though the colors in the original are much brighter (still learning to use our scanner a friend gave us). You can scan or make color copies of the artwork and use spray adhesive to affix them to magnet sheets, use iron on transfers to put them on bags or clothing, or just cut them out and back them with cardboard or a heavy-weight decorative paper--sandwich a ribbon in between and you have a very cute, lightweight ornament. Before the scanner I just took them to the UPS store for printing or copying.

Sometimes I have Clara draw directly onto fabric like with these projects:
(fabric crayon; patch affixed with lightweight double-sided interfacing) (fabric pen)

I prefer projects, though, where I can make a Xerox of the original work and work with that, in case there's an error. For embroidery I tape the copy of the drawing up to a window (you may need to darken some of the lines by tracing over them), tape the fabric up over the top, and trace it with pencil or water-soluble marker. If I can't see through the fabric I use dressmaker's carbon in between my Xerox and the fabric and trace over the copy of the artwork with ballpoint pen. I use split stitch or stem stitch most of the time when I do the embroidery.Our little artist just had her first art show for school--we love all of her creations and can't wait to see what she comes up with next!