diy (on a budget) schoolwork gallery wall

Ethan makes a lot of art on a regular basis. Between his artwork and his homeschool projects, I sticky-tack a lot of stuff on our walls. In turn, my husband walks around having a conniption fit because the sticky-tack peels the paint off and apparently he doesn't find patching up all the spots a good time, or something. (He's the neat, tidy one in this relationship.) In all seriousness, the mish-mosh of construction paper taped up all around our house ("mommy, look what I made! Hang it up!") is sloppy at best and doesn't give our house that cozy, lived in feel that I've so badly been craving...despite the fact we've been here 8 years and I've still never bothered to really decorate or hang things on the walls. (Oops!) Eight years later, my goal is to get each room in our home up to speed with decoration and that perfect level of cozy.

I have a filing cabinet where I can stash away Ethan's special school projects and art pieces after they've retired from wall-hanging status, but I really needed to work on my display set up. I knew that I wanted Ethan's schoolwork separate from his art pieces. I also knew that I didn't want to invest a ton of money into anything. Behold, my DIY-on-a-budget schoolwork gallery wall!

In our dining room, between the two glass block windows at the end of our table, sat a very empty wall. It seemed like the perfect place to display all of Ethan's schoolwork that we do in tot school and our homeschool co-op. (And eventually in preschool and beyond, though I'm not ready to face that right now, okay? Okay.)

The curtain rods were each $4-and-change from Wal-Mart. The clip rings themselves were my spendy item at $4 per pack at Wal-Mart, though I'm sure you could find them cheaper online with more sleuthing (impulse crafting is how I roll). The frames were $1 and $3 also at Wal-Mart and the pencil I created out of a ruler that cost $0.20.

The pencil "tip" was simply cut from felt with the led colored in with Sharpie.

For my printouts, one was a free printable and the other I threw together quickly and printed out -- both on regular computer paper from my home printer. Can't get much easier than that.

I love that I now have this special wall to hang up Ethan's schoolwork and that it can grow with him as school goes on. But again, I'm not ready to talk about that yet.