Whats the Shelf Life of a School Art Project?

A portfolio is actually a great idea. Museums change their exhibits, and what they don't put out on display is carefully tucked away in storage. Let Picasso put his earlier work in a portfolio when he exhibits the newer masterpieces.

At the end of the school year, we would choose the best work and bring it to the framing shop. The rest of it was both my sons choice to keep it in their rooms (display or in folder) or toss it. Over the years we had accumulated quite a beautiful and colorful collection. Their gallery was the staircase wall by the back door. Gave my kitchen some nice color.

We stopped putting up the art. There was just too much. So, we'd leave it in a stack on the kitchen counter. After it was forgotten after a week or so, we'd throw it out. We keep the best pieces and store them, but just can't keep everything. Our daughter would often come home with 3-5 things a day in preschool and it was impossible to save it all.

didn't check to see if someone suggested this or not, but my kids are pretty receptive to having a photo taken of the arte and then we look at those every once in a while. the original gets pitched.

Make a collage in his room of all of his artwork. If this ends up happening with my son's art work, that's what I plan on doing.

I put it on the fridge till the next one gets sent home then it goes into the huge plastic bin with the lid :)

I keep really well-done stuff, or the stuff that shows really obvious effort up for about a month. Then I take a digital picture and throw most of it away. I started this when I just couldn't keep another wooden art project. I put it on a DVD and load it onto the kids' computer and make the screensaver a slide show of their artwork.

I limited it all to a bulletin board in the hallway and the refrigerator door.
I left the best projects up for a long time. Even have a few on display now. I offered to send ones they wanted to grandparents and cousins and that worked to. The child's selection. Favorites stay up a year.

We have a big artist's portfolio just for kiddo's work.

Now, some favorites we actually frame, others we leave up for years, but the majority stay up for 3 months, and then come down and go in the portfolio.

hang string or fishing line across one kitchen wall with clothes pins on it. Call that the "one week wall" Everything gets clipped there for 1 week, then it can go either onto his wall or into a huge plastic tub in the garage to be kept forever. My kids have all thought this was a fair system.

We do what VM suggested. If it fits on the fridge, it can go there. If not, we take a picture of it and toss it.

I keep everything, but I put it in a box in our basement. Once something new comes home it replaces the old and the old goes into the box. I keep everything for ever and he/she can go through them when they are older and decide what to keep and what to throw away.

Having taken out a forest on our own prior to age 9, I feel your pain. I started a "special box", I display for a while, then they ceremoniously go to the box! Good luck.

I home school our kids, and they LOVE to do art stuff. All six of them.

I don't think I've ever thrown away any of their art pieces. They are all too precious to me! Each child has one of those "accordion" file folders, and their pieces go into that, sorted by type ("landscapes", "portraits", etc). They also each have a "box" for 3D art work.

They get to display their latest creation on our refrigerator, and on their bedroom walls. Okay, and also in the livingroom.

I'm not exactly a stickler for keeping the paint intact, though. lol

Take digital pictures of them and use the photofile as your screensaver.

I keep all her obviously artistic and detailed artwork, then I file them in a filing cabinet. The larger ones I hang up. I don't always tell her which ones I recycle and which I save... I use MY judgement - but if she's extremely attached to a project I try to file those too.