Child's Artwork--preservation Options

I know that you said you're a bit of a pack-rat (so am I lol), but I thought you might like something like this...

http://www.dynamicframes.com/store/c/159-Kids-Art-Frame.aspx

That way, you can keep her "works of art", while still saving space and preserving them! I know there's probably more, but that's the only site I could find. (I'm terrible at finding stuff with google! lol) Good luck! :D

Definitely make a photobook! You can take pictures of her art [including 3D pieces], or if they are mostly drawings/paintings, you can also scan them in. I have ordered them through Shutterfly and Snapfish. They are SO cool. If you have a lot of artwork and don't want to leave any out, you can have 4 per page of the 'okay' ones and then dedicate a full page for the really nice ones. You have a LOT of options for the number of pictures/page and any titles, captions, or text you want to add.
Since ordering 3 photobooks online for my son's photographs, I haven't touched my scrapbooking materials, and don't see myself doing it in the future anymore. The photobooks are so fast and easy and they will never fall apart.

Try www.ShareMyKidsArt.com - I love this website! It's free and lets you store and organize your children's art. The thing I like it about the most is it has these little buttons so that you can email or upload to your facebook wall pieces of art; this is really nice for us because we live in California and my parents live in Hawaii and my wife's parents live in NY. If one of our children create something we want to share with the grandparents, we simple press a button.

The only thing is you need to scan or photograph the art, which seems like a hassle but it's actually fairly easy. Good luck!

Every year I buy a bankers box for my girls' school/art work. I label each one with the school year and their teacher. yes it is keeping a lot, but I figure when they get older they can chose what to keep and the others I will photograph.

Keep the artwork! My parents tossed out some of my childhood artwork and I still miss it!! My favorite art teacher in high school told the class to never throw art work away. I agree.

I bought big cardboard sheets of different colored paper, I would put an art piece on a colored sheet (whatever I thought complimented the art piece. and photographed it with a digital camera. This way each piece was "framed" and more interesting.

Then I uploaded the photos to a web program (called mypublisher.com and they always have free or discount offers). I made flip books with the art and usually I get an offer at the end to buy a second or third copy of the same art book for little to nothing so I do that and give a copy to grandparents and save one for my kids when they are older.

I found this was a great way for me to both keep most of the memorable pieces yet not have to actually "keep" them. That being said, there were a very small few that I did actually keep but most went into the flip book.

Good luck.
D.

These are all great ideas! I've been saving 1 out of 10 or so pictures and secretly throwing out the more disposable ones. I have hung them up all over the walls in one room, and switch them around, throwing some away when they are taken down. Once there are too many, I will photograph them all and save them on disk, keeping only a few originals to archive. My daughter also does "large" pieces in my studio, which I'm keeping to photograph later, and on her chalkboard easel she does some really cool stuff that I just photograph for disc. I have a little "child art" folder on my computer. I'm sure as the years go on, I'll dump much more, but for now it's not out of control....I'm planning to have discs full of stuff-they hold tons, and they don't take up much space....I'm too intimidated financially to start ordering real books for the stuff....there's so MUCH!!!! I figure I'll consolidate and edit much more later when a few years have gone by.

scrapbooks, scrapbooks and more scrapbooks........some art can be fit to size, and pasted onto backing, making more space.

What I have heard that sounds the easiest is to take pictures of them then make a book on shutterfly with the pictures. Then you can add captions or title the book (Darla's Kindergarten Artwork) or whatever.
www.shutterfly.com
I have also heard of poeple saving 5 or 6 favorite ones and laminating to make place mats from them. Hope this helps :)

I bought some cheap colorful frames at Ikea and started an artist's gallery in our hallway. Every once in awhile my daughter chooses new pictures to hang in the gallery. I've also seen a thing that you can hang on the back of the door that has pockets for displaying art work. It was in a One Step Ahead catalog.

I just buy artists portfolios and keep kiddo's artwork in those. They kind of like giant photo albums. You just slide the piece into the plastic sleeve. At an art store they're around $20.

We have friends who scan in all of their child's artwork onto their computer. I don't have the good of a scanner! But since they're all safe in the portfolios, I suppose I eventually could if I got a better scanner AND was feeling perky.

When my granddaughter started finger painting at age 2, I saved her pictures and use them as back grounds in her scrapbook. I took picture of her painting then will stick those to the picture she painted. I use a regular notebook that I covered with fabric and the plastic sleeves. I use those for scrapbooking my kids journals/photo albums.

I also kept baby boxes for my children as someone mentioned in here. During the years we loved going through them but I never was so glad to have had these as when my youngest son died 2 months ago and I sat down with his 3 year old daughter and we went through daddy's box. She loved seeing his things from when he was a little boy and I also had some laughs at some of the homemade cards he made me like one for valentines when he was about 8 that read "Do you love me, or do you not? You told me once but I forgot!" He was told often that I loved him so I really laughed at this.

I use binders, one per child per school year. I keep their report cards, school photos, samples of school work and then I do a color scan of favorite artwork and reduce to 8x11 if needed. I also have one frame for each child where they can display a favorite piece of art until another replaces it and it goes into the binder.

What I have done is keep a few of the better examples of my kids' artwork, and put them in a scrapbook along with the photos and other mementos of their school year. My scrapbook lady takes pictures of her kids' artwork and puts it in the scrapbook that way, but to me that is not preferable - sort of like having a poster of the artwork rather than the original oil painting, know what I mean? So I keep the originals. What I like about putting them in scrapbooks is that the scrapbook pages (assuming you are buying quality product like Creative Memories) are meant to preserve things like children's artwork. The pages are acid-free so the art will last a long time. Also, since it is displayed so beautifully and lovingly, it really honors the memories of this cherished time in your child's life. A finished scrapbook is something they can have for the rest of their lives. Just my two cents!

I wouldn't suggest taking pictures of her artwork to save as opposed to actually saving the originals... it just isn't the same.
If you want to scrapbook it, I would splurge on the larger size book... My mom made a "baby box" for me - instead of just a baby book. She took one of the larger sized Rubbermaid containers and saved artwork and just lots of things from when I was younger (like report cards, awards, etc...). Obviously it will take up a little more room than a scrapbook, but you would be able to keep adding to the box as she gets older. I remember sitting with my mom when I was older (and could appreciate it, lol) and looking through everything that she had saved of mine. It was nice to hear the stories and memories she would tell me about the photos, drawings, etc...
Whatever you decide to do, good luck!