Hi Moms,
What is the best, most reasonably priced storage & display thing you've used for you kiddo's artwork? I have a 3.5 year old who goes to daycare and they do artwork every week. It's just started, and we have a few pictures. I don't want to keep EVERYTHING, but I do want some actual physical pieces to keep as well as maybe scanning a lot of them to see how his "art" progresses.
I appreciate your suggestions! Thanks.
A great suggestion that I once heard from someone is to keep one piece of artwork per month. Then you can put it in a binder and only have 12 pieces of artwork a year. The others don't have to go into the trash. If you have relatives it's a nice way to brighten someone's day by sticking them in the mail every once in a while.
if they're in 8 x 11 paper, get those plastic sheet protectors and stick them in a binder by year.
I was going to recommend exactly what Dawi P said - get a binder, sheet protectors and keep what is important by year. One thing I wish we would have done (and haven't yet) is add a date. But, there are only a few thousand things we can get done as working parents each day, right?
We tape a lot of my daughters art work to her mirror closet doors. It is rather sloppy, but she is proud of it.
What ever you decide you use, make it acid free to prevent the yellowing.
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!
We put up some picture wire in the hallway and use clothespins to hang current projects. It's on the hallway to the kids' rooms so they get to see their own work and know how proud we are of it! :)
Along that same line, I've seen people use a curtain line that IKEA sells. Very inexpensive and so cute.
Like this: http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/inspiration/hang-kids-ar...
I've also seen these frames that can be opened from the front so that you can easily exchange artwork.
As far as keeping things, I take digital photographs of everything they bring home and then make a book of the school year from them using Blurb (or any photobook maker would work).
Right now, everything has been put into a labeled box but once I get time to go through it (I keep everything until the photobook is complete in case I miss something) and decide on the pieces that I want to keep forever, I'm thinking of using this mailing tube idea: http://www.marthastewart.com/article/art-project-storage
Have fun with it!
Get a file cabinet, and file it per year/grade.
And ALWAYS put the date on it that he made it and the school/grade/Teacher's name so that years from now, he can look back on it and know when/what grade/which Teacher/class he was in.
Scanning it takes too much time.
Just take photos of it and digitally keep it. Then you don't have to keep the actual object. Or just keep what you want.... or frame it.
There are MANY years of this.... for each grade and age your child becomes.
Now, my daughter who is 7, 'files' her own things, in her file drawer cabinets. Thus, she is learning organization and 'filing' of her own things.
Which keeps clutter off of my desk!
These are things that I do.
good luck,
Susan
