Personalised Gift Ideas using Kids Artwork

The service I offer over at Artful Kids, is just one way of displaying your children’s artwork.  I am not aware of any other service that offers the same range of  products and services for transforming children’s paintings and drawings into Wall-Art, but  on my travels, I have discovered other imaginative ways to use kids artwork, all of which make excellent gift ideas for Christmas, so I thought I would introduce a few of them here:

Jewellery

You may have seen children’s finger prints transferred to silver, but AM Jewellery specialises in taking children’s drawings and putting them onto beautiful hallmarked silver jewellery.  This can range from cuff-links for Dad, to pendants, brooches, charms and earrings.  I think they make a lovely unusual gift idea.
She also has a blog at http://www.amjewellery.blogspot.com/

 

 

Embroidered Cushions

Another service I have come across recently is that offered at extraspecialtouch.co.uk who can take a child’s drawing and turn it into a personalised embroidered cushion or wall panel.
The drawing needs to be on white paper using thick coloured felt-tips rather than crayon or pencils.  They also need to be fairly simple without too much detail, and the number of colours should be limited. Again, an unusual gift idea, that is also very personal.

Photo Gifts

Last but not least, there are of course lots of services which will put any photo of your choice onto cards mugs, mousemats, and T-shirts etc.  Your local photo shop will almost certainly offer such a service.  Zazzle offers this service online, and what’s more you can even set up your own store there to sell your own designs - it’s a great way to indulge your creativity!  I have decided to indulge mine, and over the next week or two I will be adding a number of templates for a range of cards designed specifically for kids artwork.  I shall include a couple of Christmas ones as well, but it may be too late for most people, with or without postal strikes, even though Zazzle say they usually turn around orders in 24 hours.  I will of course let everyone know as soon as they are available.

At this point, I have to point out that like all services which simply print your photograph on to another object, be it card, mug or t-shirt, your photo will be used as supplied, unless otherwise stated.  (This of course does not apply to the first 2 services I have featured, where editing takes place as part of the creative process).
Because of this, any smudges, creases or tears in the original, will potentially show up on the finished product.  The printed colours may also be disappointing, as a detailed proofing process is uneconomic for items like this.  These issues may not be too significant for smaller cheaper objects like a mug, but I feel that it is important for larger scale projects which will be displayed long term upon your wall.  Because of this, at Artful Kids when we produce a canvas or framed print for the wall from a photograph of a child’s artwork, we do make sure that their work will always appear at its best, by removing anything which shouldn‘t be there, and making sure that the colours are saturated, bright, and as accurate as possible. 

Well this has turned into more of a sales pitch than I had intended but my excuse is that I am passionate about what I do, and blogs are about sharing.  However, I do realise that not everyone will share my enthusiasm so I will try to curb myself for a while!