I love kid’s art that I actually want to hang on our walls! Equally, I love kid’s art that can double as a cute DIY gift idea! I secretly don’t want my kiddos to learn to actually paint real pictures of things, because I love the freedom that they have when they paint. DIY abstract paintings for the win! These Canvas Painting Ideas for Kids are an awesome way to make one of their paintings into art, that hopefully someone would actually keep on their walls, as artwork!

To assist your children in creating beautiful paintings, all you have to do is make sure not to give them paint colours that when mixed together turn the colour of poo, and you are golden! Wink!

My kiddos love giving gifts that they actually made, and I love that they are the much cheaper option for giving gifts to family and friends! Plus homemade gifts are the best gifts from kids! At least I love them! Lol…

Whenever I’m at the dollar store I pick up a couple inexpensive canvass to have in my crafting arsenal. You can get them in so many different sizes, and by adding wood to the sides, you can easily create these easy DIY Canvas Frames, to make your painting projects look complete!

Canvas Painting Ideas for Kids Tutorial

MATERIALS NEEDED:

• Canvas
• Paint (we used glitter paint and regular acrylic paint)
• Letter Stamps
• Black Ink Pad
• 1/2 inch by 1 1/2 inch Wood
• Wood Stain (I used Jacobean by Minwax)
• Saw
• Wood Glue
• Nail Gun (optional)

METHOD: 

Step 1: Paint your canvas! So… I have young kids… and they loooove painting, but they also love mixing all the paints together and then painting with that colour. So to prevent their paintings from looking like poo, I make sure to give them colours that are in the same colour shade family.

From our experience, these colours work well together:

• pink, red, purple, white
• blue, green, teal, white
• yellow, orange, red, pink, white
• green, yellow, blue, white

I do let the kids pick their colours, but naturally Ivy is all about the pinks and Corbin is all about the blues! We have very typical boy and girl colour preferences in this family… I don’t know how that happened… When Ivy sees someone wearing pink she automatically thinks they are her best friends! So cute. Lol.

Step 2: After the paint is completely dry (and the kids are in bed, lol), use your letter stamps and black ink pad to add a cute personal saying to their paintings. I asked them before they went to bed, what they wanted their paintings to say, and Corbin said “Love you Daddy!” and Ivy said, “I want Daddy!” Both sayings are things that they both say to Daddy all day long! Love!

P.S. If you were wondering, we made these paintings for their Daddy for Father’s Day!

Step 3: Cut the wood for your frame. Measure the length of the sides of your canvas and cut 2 pieces of wood this length. Then measure the length of the bottom of your canvas and add the width of the 2 side pieces of wood. Like this…

My Canvas is 8 inches by 10 inches:

• 2 side pieces of wood were cut at 8 inches long
• Bottom and top pieces are the length 10 inches, plus the width of 2 the wood sides (1/2 inch each) = Total 11 inches long

Step 4: Stain your wood. I used Jacobean by Minwax wood stain. All you do to stain your wood is put a small amount of stain on an old rag, and rub it into your wood. Make sure to wear gloves because the stain will also stain your hands! Wink! Jacobean finger nails for days!! Lol

Step 5: Use wood glue to attach your stained wood pieces to the sides of your canvas. Then let it dry completely, before gifting it, or hanging it on the wall. You could also put a couple small nails (with a nail gun), in the sides to more tightly secure the wood to the canvas. However this small of a canvas didn’t need it. If you opt not to nail your frame to your canvas, just make sure when you are hanging your masterpiece on the wall, to hang it from the canvas not the frame!

Enjoy your DIY masterpiece!

I hope you found inspiration in this little Canvas Painting Ideas for Kids creative project. Even if you don’t have small kids to paint with you could use this project for yourself, as an awesome homemade gift idea! Just paint, add a saying, and frame!

I love how these Canvas Painting Ideas for Kids turned out, but now I want to frame all the canvas artwork in our house! Lol. If you are looking for more kids art ideas here is a link to another little kids art project that we turned into a DIY gift idea called Framable Kids Art! It’s a fun DIY art project too!

Until next time, enjoy creating artistic DIY gifts, and creating beautiful things everyday!

XO JCL