Hang it Up

Between our garage and our house is nerve central: our laundry room -- the general catch all, mud room, always-a-mess-but-never-visible-to-company, most trafficked area of our house. There is a metal door that leads from the garage into nerve central.

And that door is also our shrine to our children's creativity.

We buy magents every time we go anywhere as a family -- the zoo, the science museum, a fun rest stop on a long car trip (you name it, we have a magnet for it) -- and we plaster the door top to bottom with a rotating gallery of our kids' artwork. We see it every time we leave the house, and the magnets remind us of special family times.

Not a day goes by that our kids don't point out something on the door.

"There's Skylar's beach picture!" "Look at Fiona's funny dog."

Putting a child's creation up in a prominent place is a sign that creativity is valued. Sometimes they'll sit down to make something new, "because the door needs to be freshed." A simple shrine to budding artists can encourage them to continue exploring their creative talents.

A tip: tape works just as well on non-metal doors, but the magnets are fun, so buy a quart of metallized paint to turn any surface into a magnet board.