Preserving your children's artwork

I got this idea from my good friend, Liza. Since I love primitive stitchery, I thought this would be a great way to display my kids' artwork. I traced the artwork with a pencil on muslin using a window or a light box. Once it's traced, I chose the same embroidery floss colors that the children used in their artwork. When the embroidery was done I covered a cookie sheet with tin foil and laid the muslin over it. Then I boiled a cup of water and put two or three tea bags in the cup and let soak for a few minutes. When that was ready I took the tea bags and used them like a sponge, dabbing water from the tea cup onto the muslin till the whole surface was wet. Put the cookie sheet with the muslin on it into the oven and set it to bake at the lowest setting. Check the muslin ever 10 minutes until it is dry. Then take it out of the oven and remove it from the tin foil. All that's left to do is frame it!  

The hands I had traced off some individual artwork off projects from school. I made it as a Christmas present to ourselves. 

When Laura was four the story was her Family Home Evening lesson that she gave to all of us. In the original she used a real leaf that we still have taped to the paper we helped her to write it on.  

This was self-portrait of my youngest daughter, Sarah. I used the same colors that she did right down to the freckles. 

On the left is a snowman Laura drew, once again I used the same colors she did, hence the brown snowman. On the right is a drawing Sarah did of our visit to Kennebunkport, Maine where we played on the beach and fed the seagulls.