Managing children’s art work

On our way home from work most weekdays we gain a small pile of artwork and scribbles by way of preschool/daycare. Cedric comes home with a creation or two per week but Dashiell is downright industrious. Each day there are freehand drawings, photocopied coloring sheets full of color, a letter-of-the-week-themed creation, and sometimes something large and folded into thirds. One time it was a truffala tree! 

An easy way to manage children's art work | RISING*SHINING
An easy way to manage children's art work | RISING*SHINING

Especially as Dashiell starts to express his own creativity and imagination each piece of his work feels precious! But if we start collecting now we will surely need an entire storage unit to house all the paper by the time they graduate high school. So I knew I needed a system; just the thought brings a calm to my heart.

An easy way to manage children's art work | RISING*SHINING
An easy way to manage children's art work | RISING*SHINING

My system is still evolving a little bit but here’s what I’ve got so far:

+ Display one or two pieces of art work on the fridge or in Dashiell’s room where we have some art clips.

+ Collect art work that I want to remember in a designated spot in the office. I recently bought a wire basket for this. Before putting anything into the basket I weed out things that are just trash.

+ Take individual photos of their art against a white poster board every month or so. Then toss it. I keep a piece of white poster board in the closet and bring it out for this. I make sure to do this during the day so that I have good natural light for the photos. I try to keep all photos landscape orientation. There are only a couple of things that I’ve actually kept after photographing them. Everything else gets thrown away.

+ Upload art photos to a photo stream to share with family. This is similar to how I share photos of the boys with family.

+ Print a photo book with art photos every few years (?). I haven’t printed an art photo book yet and I’m not sure how often I want to commit to doing this. I want to save these memories but on the other hand I have just a handful of my work from kindergarten through high school graduation and I’m fine with that.

Right now the boys are at a prime age for producing a lot of little crafts and art work. I know this will dwindle over the years. I’m so happy to have a way to capture these memories in a way that doesn’t take up a lot of physical space.

10 responses to “Managing children’s art work”

  1. AshleyM Avatar
    AshleyM

    Love this! One of my very best friends is unable to part with anything. When her daughter turned ten and they were combining households with her new fiancee and his children, she decided it was time to confront the GIANT box of her daughter’s entire life’s worth of artwork. It was huge. I actually laughed out loud when I saw it because I couldn’t believe she had actually kept every single piece. Since she couldn’t part with any of it, I had the genuinely pleasant task of going through it all. I photographed about a third of it and threw the rest away, keeping just a few pieces that were really special. (My husband and I even bought one from her for $10! It was really unique and interesting.) In the end I had them all printed in a Blurb book and it’s small (just 8X8 or something like that) and not very thick, but it’s perfect. You can see the progression in her skills, her favorite colors over time, etc. I can’t wait to do the same for my son, though I think I will wait and have the book printed after he’s finished with high school now that I know it doesn’t have to be giant.

    Reply
    1. Kelsey Avatar
      Kelsey

      What a great service you did for a friend! I love that you bought something. Some of their art is just so wonderful. I have a watercolor of Dash’s framed. For the Blurb book did you have pictures of several on each page? I have loved using Blurb for our family photo books so I’d probably do something similar. Maybe I’ll wait and do one for each boy at the end of elementary school so they’ll each just have one book – ?

      Reply
  2. Amanda Avatar
    Amanda

    Love this idea! I do something similar with cards, notes, etc. that Tony and I give to each other. At first, I was keeping them all, but now I just take a photo and upload it to a private Instagram account and include the occasion and date in the caption. I figure someday I’ll turn them into a book.

    Reply
    1. Kelsey Avatar
      Kelsey

      Obviously I love this idea! We have a keepsake box for things like this but honestly we’d look through the items more if they were captured in a book. This might need to be a future project – thanks!

      Reply
  3. Laura Avatar
    Laura

    Have you seen the Artkive app? You upload photos of kid art, can record child and date and title, then can get a book printed. My friend says the books are good quality. My son just finished preschool and I’m planning to make one with his preschool art over the past 2-3 years.

    Reply
    1. Kelsey Avatar
      Kelsey

      Oh! I have not! This sounds similar to my method but just tailored for art work. I will definitely check this out. Thanks!

      Reply
  4. Anne Avatar
    Anne

    I love these tips! I’m not a keeper of lots of things, but I’m already getting resistance to the recycling of every preschool worksheet from my little mister – so a system that he understands (so that he’ll let go of things!) is going to be necessary. I was planning to take photos and print a yearly album because he loves looking at photo albums so much, but that will turn into a bit of an unwieldy collection too! So new idea after reading through yours is definitely to start a photo stream, but then to pick some favorites and include them in his yearly photo album. That will be such a fun way to keep memories both of what he looked like at the time but also what he was creating!

    Reply
    1. Kelsey Avatar
      Kelsey

      Happy that this will be helpful for you, and that you have a way to tailor it to work the best for you. It is really fun to capture what they create without dedicating an entire closet to storing it!

      Reply
  5. Sarah Avatar
    Sarah

    I trash about 95% of what my 4 year old brings home. The best stuff either goes on display or into a box, and when the box starts to get full I weed through it and narrow the collection down even further. Like you, I only have a couple things from when I was young and that seems like plenty. I’ve seen the photo idea before but then I realize that I could spend the time and effort to print a photo book…that I would very likely never open again! Ha!

    Reply
    1. Kelsey Avatar
      Kelsey

      Finding a system that works for you is key – this sounds simple and most importantly that you are happy with it. High five!

      Reply

Leave a Reply