Kids Art Teacher Gift - A photo collage made from kids drawings

Put together this kids art teacher gift using drawings from everyone in the class. It’s a fantastic, sentimental, handmade, creative teacher gift idea.

See how I made a special kids art teacher gift, using drawings from every kid in our kindergarten class this year.

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My twins recently finished kindergarten, and I only cried a little… Ok, well, I only cried a little in front of my kids. We were seriously blessed with the best kindergarten teacher this year. I can’t tell you how many times I would be talking with other parents, and we would say, “I just don’t know how Mrs. Anderson does it!”

As the end of the school year approached, I knew that I wanted to do something extra special for the best kindergarten teacher in the world! I was inspired by these kids art photo collages I’ve seen on Pinterest, and I wanted to try to make a collage from the whole class.

The concept: this was a portrait of Mrs. Anderson, as seen through the eyes of her students. I had each of her students draw a picture of their teacher, and I would put them together into a photo collage.

How to made a photo collage from kids drawings

Step one – Gather drawings from everyone in the class

I sent home a note in a folder to each child in my kids’ kindergarten class. If you want to just use my template, you can download it here. This was seriously the worst kept secret, ever. My kids told Mrs. Anderson all about their “secret” art project, and how it was a gift for her! There were a few kids who did not send a picture back. I popped into school one day during art class, and had those students quickly draw a picture with me then.

Step two – Photograph every drawing

The key to good quality photos, in any setting, is good light. You can see my typical setup in this post about photographing kids artwork. In this case, I was in a hurry, so I skipped the DSLR camera and tripod. I set a piece of white foam core board (from the dollar store) in front of a window on a cloudy day (for filtered light, instead of direct light that causes shadows). Then I laid each drawing on the board, smoothed it as best I could, and snapped a picture with my iPhone.

Step three – Edit and enhance each drawing

Here’s a quick video tutorial all about how I digitize and enhance kids artwork using PicMonkey:

Step four – Make a collage

I used PicMonkey to make a photo collage, complete with each child’s name on their artwork and a label for our “work of art”. I titled this piece “Portrait of Mrs. Anderson”. I gave it a complete label with the medium used and date as well. After our recent trip to the Tacoma Museum of Glass, I was inspired to treat even young artist’s works with the same respect as a fine piece of art in a gallery.