While a lot of parents spend early fall buying school supplies and school clothes,
some other parents use the time to update their kid’s rooms. And one of the best
ways to decorate your child’s room is with art.

Listening to children and their suggestions on how they’d like to decorate their
rooms can give us some great ideas!

We asked a bunch of our favorite kids what kind of wall art they’d like if they got
to decorate their rooms.

“Funny art”, Grace, age 8

“Anything with my name on it.” Katie, age 5

“Maps of the United States!” Max, age 9

“MY art.” Michael, age 11

“Pictures of my favorite musicians!” –Skylar, age 9

“I like movie posters like The Incredibles, Star Wars, Hulk and King Kong. And Yankee photos and memorabilia.” -Jacob, age 8 ½

“Pictures of my cat!” “Big!” “Over my bed!” - Jessica, age 5

“Photos of Italy and other places I’ve traveled to with my family” Sally, age 13

“Pictures of my favorite actors and singers like the High School Musical stars!” Kira, age 9.5

“Anything that’s purple, my favorite color!” Hannah, age 4

“I would like to have pictures of candy on my walls.” – Rose, age 9

So how do you turn these ideas into great art for your home that you as the parent can live with, too? The idea is to have some fun! Create a theme!

If you want inexpensive posters of rock stars or movie heroes, those are easy to find. Just frame the art in an unexpected way or group them in an interesting arrangement. Lots of small images in clear inexpensive frames in a grid arrangement are eye-catching and clean looking.

Shop at local flea markets for old illustrated children’s books and frame the pages from them. Some of them are amazing. Alphabet art is always wonderful, too. Have the child’s name written out by an artist using creative alphabet letters.

If you want something your kids can grow with, and that has continuing value, start collecting. Cartoon cells of their favorite animated characters, limited edition vintage posters or fine art photographs are always great choices- just make sure the subject matter is something of interest to your kids.

You can create a small art budget for your child and then once a year you can help them find something they like from an artist or company -shopping online makes this quite easy- and get them started learning about the world of art collecting, too.

Welcome to Will It Look Good Over The Sofa's blog!

Welcome to Will It Look Good Over The Sofa’s first monthly blog! Since I’m a fine art photographer who loves home decor, I thought it would be a great idea to create a blog (and website) where the two could meet.

If you’ve just bought a new home and you’re looking for some affordable art for the walls, if you’re a mom looking for kid’s room art (like our great alphabet art collection), or you’ve got an office to decorate, then this is the blog for you.

Shop our website, too - www.WillItLookGoodOverTheSofa.com where you’ll find lots of framed art and unframed art. Our online photo gallery features great affordable fine art photos by a variety of photographers in styles from abstract to photojournalistic.

And a variety of subjects, too – if you love flower photography or photographs of Italy, they’re here! They’re all original high end digital prints (or giclee prints as we’ve learned from the French), and they’re all signed by the artists and are limited editions.

If you’d like to see what your photo would look like in a room in your home, visit our new friends at www.DesignbyPhoto.com. Of if you’re not sure about how to hang your photograph (most of us hang our art WAY too high!), check out some of our articles on the Will It Look Good Over The Sofa website. There’s a great one on hanging art. (Also some great ones on collecting art, art for kid’s rooms, etc.)

Our blog also features a “Photo Of The Month.” This month's photo is "Juliet's Balcony." Yes, it's that famous balcony in Verona, Italy. Romeo, Romeo, where art thou? Each month we will highlight one of our photographs and 5% of the profits will go to help a charitable organization. This month the proceeds will benefit the Trickle Up Program.

The Trickle Up Program helps the world’s poorest people take the first steps out of poverty by providing seed capital and business training so they can launch their own small businesses.

Since it’s close to Valentine’s Day and we’ve got red on our minds, think about painting a wall red or hanging some art with red in it. In a study recently cited in the New York Times, office workers who were selected for their abilities to focus on their jobs regardless of their surroundings thrived the most in red rooms! Subjects assigned to plain white rooms with no splash of color or Matisse’s on the walls, did the poorest. So invigorate yourself from the winter doldrums by putting some red in your life!