store and display your kids' masterpieces...

I've suddenly found myself with more masterpieces created during my family's morning live drawing sessions than I know what to do with. Luckily, we have some great ideas about how to store, scan, or display all that artwork your kids are making right now! Check out some of my favorite tips...

1) Make a Photo Book!  Scan all your kids' artwork (taking a clear photo on your iPhone works!), and put everything into a bound book. You can put them into all of our fun and bright Mixbook designs. This offers a way to remember all the art without having to physically keep it all and bound perfectly together to enjoy for years to come!

Or, for a low-tech version, glue/tape them into a notebook! This is fun for dimensional art or if you truly can't part with the original.

2) Storage Containers. DIY some fun containers to store everything neatly (try a container per child) and have an easy place to store everything when it's complete. Check out all our tips for keeping your containers organized and curated here!

3) Make A Colorful Display!  Everyone needs a little color in their lives, especially now! So make fun colorful displays and hang up those masterpieces as if they belonged in a museum. You can have rotating "guest artists" if you've got multiple kids in the house, or use all the blank walls to feature everyone. You can use the dowel rods in this tutorial, or simply use bright and fun washi tape! 

...if you don't have dowel rods lying around, try this fun alternative with "fancying up" some hangers for displaying your art.

I hope everyone is hanging in there and doing okay safe at home!  Let me know what you're filling the non-working portion of your days with...arts and crafts projects? Music or outdoor fun? Snacks and Netflix? I want to hear all the ideas you have to stay healthy and happy.  

(Photos by Lily Glass and Casey Brodley, styling by Julia Wester, production assistance by Jess Hong.)

omg! kid planners are here...

Happy Friday and happy almost July! July means we're in full-on summer mode with vacations, fireworks, and the start of all the 2019-2020 Oh Joy! x Erin Condren planners! We're celebrating extra this year because the whole family can join in on the fun with their new kid planners! My girls LOVE them, and you can customize the kid planners with our cover designs so that you and your mini me can match. Come check it out...

happy friday + behind the frame...

Happy Friday! Today, we're showing you a sneak peek at the magic that went into creating our latest Instagram post where we turned my mini van into a colorful PARTY VAN! Take a look at what goes on behind the frame...

new oh joy! for erin condren planner covers...

Happy Monday! Guess what? We have a BRAND NEW Oh Joy! x Erin Condren design, Cheerful City, to add to our collection! It's the perfect way to hit refresh on your planner. And, it's extra fun because it comes in two color-ways that we designed, BUT you can also customize the colors and pick your favorites. Come see...

happy friday + behind the frame...

Back in the early days of blogging, I was taking random (often not amazing) photos and posting them here for all to see. It was rough and scrappy, but also there was so much less pressure and expectation than social media often has today. Now, we offer original content (which I love) and beautiful, professional photos (which I also love). But, we really wanted to remind you of the real stuff that goes on behind the frame...all the mess off to the side, the beautiful photos that sometimes come about by accident, and just a little bit more behind-the-scenes. Hence, this post today...!

It's a simple look at a moment in time here at Oh Joy, but it shows you the talented people who help make our concepts, photos, posts, products, and partnerships come together. In this instance, I was checking out the work that Julia and Jess (pictured above) were working on for another project when they started taping pieces of art from the other project onto my jumpsuit. All-of-a-sudden, I was a walking canvas, and this photo you see first in the post came to life. Those are sometimes the happy accidents that come when we're fast at work on other stuff, and I love it all.

If you want to see more of these little peeks at the real life stuff happening over here at Oh Joy!, let us know below in the comments!

Happy Friday!

{Photos by Lily Glass, styling by Julia Wester, styling assistance and crafting by Jess Hong.}

have a joyful weekend...

Happy Friday! Have you read this book Joyful? Designer Ingrid Fetell Lee explores how the seemingly mundane spaces and objects we interact with every day have surprising and powerful effects on our mood. It's completely up my alley but also a way to look at the world that gives us all hope and joy in the everyday. Ingrid's website, Aesthetics of Joy, is a beautiful and informative reference of various ways to find and incite joy throughout our lives...in schools, in hospitals, through art, in city streets, and more. See a few of my favorites that she's discovered below...

Happy Friday + My Life In Color!

Happy Friday! My talented friend Brittany Watson Jepsen of The House Lars Built recently launched a companion book to Craft The Rainbow called My Life In Color! It's a really beautiful journal full of prompts that help encourage personal exploration through COLOR. It's super fun and got me thinking about my favorite color...green!

I love green because it is so calming, can be paired with lots of colors (blue and pink are my favorite to pair it with!), and it reminds me of nature and growth. So to give you some GREEN inspiration, here are a few of my favorite ways we've used green to style over the last few years here at Oh Joy! From statement couches to home offices, even to an ENTIRE living room decked out in green...

Why I Love Teacher Planners...

Back-to-school is just around the corner! Whether you're a teacher prepping for the new school year, a busy mom on-the-go, OR someone who just wants to organize your life, the Oh Joy! for Erin Condren Teacher Lesson Planner is for YOU. Here are a few reasons I am obsessed with it...

make a kids' craft cart!

I love fostering creativity in my kids. One of the ways that I always suggest doing that is keeping a fun mix of materials and art supplies around for them to experiment with. So, today, we're showing you how to turn a basic cart into a super cute craft cart for your little ones!

Here's the before and after! See how we transformed this cart...

making wishes...

Sometimes on Instagram Stories, I'll share little activities or things I do with my kids that you guys ask details about afterwards. So I wanted to start sharing them here on the blog, too, so they can have a place to live on forever.

While we were in Hawaii, my kids loved passing by fountains and throwing in coins to make wishes. Kids' wishes are so simple and pure and mine often said they wanted to fly or wanted to see a rainbow. So, inspired by my kids' love of making wishes in fountains and my friend, Max Wanger's "dreams list" he wrote with his son recently, I asked my girls to write down their wishes. Well, actually, this is just Ruby's since Coco can't write more than her name right now. But, if you have a kid who doesn't yet write, you can also ask them to tell them to you and write for them. The fun thing about this exercise is they get to think about actual things they wish for as well as things outside of the scope of the real world. Because to kids, those lines are so blurred right now. Anyway, for those of you with kids or nieces/nephews, kids you babysit...try it out! It would be fun to make these Wish Lists regularly and watch how they change over time!