Schools

A creative project and lasting souvenir of school art

The idea behind Rugs to Love came from my children’s school where the Reception year has done a project to help the children to develop their painting skills, understand composition and the application of art to a finished item.

To make a Rug to Love each child produces their own painting – with some simple guidance for how to make the design successful but a minimal level of adult help. The process of designing the rug teaches them to think about how a design works, about composition and gives them a focus for producing some very high quality work.

Parents can then choose whether or not to go ahead with the rug – the design exercise in itself obviously has value. Parents choose the size they want and the painting is then made into a unique and lasting souvenir of their school art. In the case of my children’s school, staff, parents and children have all been thrilled with the results.

So far the focus has been on Reception and Year 1 and 2 children – age 5/7 - but there is no reason why older children wouldn’t enjoy the challenge of designing their own rug.

Whilst the above approach was the inspiration for Rugs to Love, there are many different ways that the idea can work:

• As a class project to take home – each child producing their own design with parents paying for the rugs if they wish.
• As a class project for the school – a collective project to design a rug for a classroom, library or hall. As each rug is one-off, all sizes are possible. Rugs can also be made into wall hangings if required.
• As an individual project – a unique, special gift for, or from, a child.

Even if you are only prepared to distribute flyers to parents, Rugs to Love will give a £5 donation back to the school or to a charity of your choice for each rug ordered from your school.

If you are interested in finding out more or ordering flyers to distribute please contact me for more details.