Art Portfolio Ideas

This question is why I'm up early this morning! It keeps me up at night (really). I have four kids and want to remember all of their special school moments but it's begun to take over my 'creative space'. I've scanned some pieces and have a stack of the largers ones to photograph before "divesting myself" of most of them. :) My kids would just as soon throw them away but I want to remember. I tried the Rubbermaid thing, but just found I bought more and more containers, so that's not quite worked for me. If it's all 'special' then none of it is really special, right? Today I'm devoting an hour to photographing their pieces. Next, I'm going to make each of them a 'best of' book (the self published ones) so we all can 'ooh and ahh'. BTW, my daughter's teacher took some of her students' best artwork and had greeting cards made for the parents. How special is that? I might even try incorporating that idea and use them as gifts for the grandparents. :D

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I found these great office paper storage boxes at Walmart (in the office supply section) that holds hanging file folders for my son's artwork, although I did cull the artwork and break it down by year. Have 3 years worth in there with room for more! Pretty colors, too, a teal for him and purple for my daughter, once she starts amassing artwork too :)

Check out your local Michael's or Staples or Walmart and I'll get you find something nice to work with! Good luck!

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I have been scanning artwork for 9 years. Last year at Christmas I made a "coffee table book" of my daughters artwork creations. There are many websites to do this. It is so beautiful. I came across some of the originals, and they have peeling paint, faded spots and brown spots. Try scanning them or taking a digital picture of it so you can save it in its original glory. The materials that they use to make them are usually washable, so they are not long lasting.

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If you want to "force" yourself to limit the items by size and quantity..I read this suggestion once when my now teen daughter was little. Get some new, never used pizza boxes, or find something very very similar to purchase. I actually bought something way back then (about 13 years ago I guess..my daughter was probably 3 then) thru I think Lillian Vernon? My version was a heavy duty cardboard file cabinet looking thing, with a top and bottom section (its is maybe 2 feet tall), and it has a total of 6 heavy duty "pizza box" boxes you can label for each school year/grade/term/season, etc..and limit yourself to what fits in there. Its actually on the top shelf of my daughters closet and holds all her reports and "the best of" projects from about Kindy-4th grade. I wish I had gotten 2 of them!

Soon after that my daughters true artistic talent began to emerge, so we needed more space anyways and now she has actual portfolios and storage for items needed, especially from 7th grade on. She attends and Arts High School now for Visual Arts and plans to go to college for illustration. =)

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Hi...I don't really have anything different to say, however, with our four children, I did as you suggested and bought 4 big Rubbermaid bins and put their names on each one. I have work from all four of them in each bin. I wish I had some of my own things from when I was young but with 8 of us kids in the family it didn't happen :( So, fastforward, my youngest two are 18, also a 21 and 24 year old. I was hoping to be able to give them their works that I saved and unfortunately, they are not ready to have their bins of artwork yet...(hoping to have a little more storage space by giving them their bin...ha). So, I'll still hold on to them until they're a little older and more settled then I'm sure they'll want some of this stuff just as I wish I had things from my youth. Glad you're doing this for your son...someday, they'll appreciate your effort to hang onto this stuff!

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For the flat art projects, Michael's has an array of giant art portfolio folders. They're made of flexible cardboard, and latch with rubber band. Also, when my brothers and I were young, my mom bought long narrow cardboard boxes that are meant to be stored under the bed. She labeled one with each of our names, and saved our projects there.

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Hi K.:
I have 2 girls and the same issue...to many school projects and no place to store them. :-)
I found a Keepsake Portfolio at the Lakeshore Learning Store (originally on line, but I also saw it in the store there in the Kohl's/Costco shopping center - I see you live in San Marcos, I'm in Escondido). It's a pretty cool little portfolio, it has separate pockets that you can label for the different years and store the projects from that school year.
I tried to post the link, however, for some reason it wouldn't post right. If you want to view it just type in Lakeshore Learning stores, and look for Art Portfolios.
Hope this helps. :-)

Tammy

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If you're talking about paintings/drawings you could use a filing cabinet. They aren't too expensive and you can get folders to separate by date, year, type of art, etc. Not sure if you're talking about larger projects, in which case bins are probably your best bet unless you have room for a trophy case/display case. I love that you're saving all of it though, he will appreciate it someday and you will be glad you did.

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Well...... from a mom whose "baby" graduates from college in May: I saved a few items from each year of school for each of my kids. I recently asked each of them if they wanted the collection and their response was "throw it away, we'll never look at it" :( I'm still going to keep it, hoping that some day they will appreciate it.
The advise I would give is don't save everything; at the end of each school year go through the pile and carefully select items that are representative of the work they did and then, free of guilt, throw the rest away :)

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I actually use artist portfolio books (big ones) for kiddo's art. I buy them (because I'm lazy)... but you can make them fairly easy if you don't want them protected by plastic. Acid free black paper, cut to size, hole punched, & matt board for the covers. Use ribbon or Drings to bind them.

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