Every so often, another mother will ask what I do with all the pictures and crafts my children have made.
I actually keep an large, old shoe box, up on a closet shelf, where it is easy to get to, but still out of the way...
...so I can easily slip pictures into it, when I take them down from the fridge, or clear the table. I take a quick second, and mark the back of each picture with the child's name and the date, or the season and year - if I can't remember the exact date the picture was drawn.
When the box is full, I go through it, and remove duplicate type drawings, so I have a nice sampling of each child's work, from each stage of development to keep.
After all, I loved those preschool drawn pancake people as much as any mom...
...but I don't really need every single one to remember, or to show the children later.
As to the bigger crafts, I might snap a quick photo of them for the box - then, I heartlessly dismantle them, recouping whatever pieces (googly eyes, feathers, craft sticks) that can be reused. Unless the craft is also a toy, and then I leave it to be played with until it is either destroyed, forgotten, or outgrown. At which point it can usually go into to the trash without causing its maker too much trauma.
How about you? Any great suggestions for storing all that artwork?
6 comments:
I have kept some samples of my children's artwork from their younger years but have thrown out the majority of their creations. These days most of their drawings are in proper journals which are easy to store or they are digital creations which take up no space at all! If I still had small children I might scan their drawings into my computer before parting with them.
Wow, all your artwork still fits in one shoe box? We have a big flat cardboard box for each year and do pretty much the same clean up in the end of the year. Then we "archive the boxes" in a big plastic bin in the attic. I've been known to "quietly" rid of certain crafts that daughter didn't want to part with, and nobody was the wiser ;)
I'm horrible at storing their artwork, I've got a special box for some of them, but my kids, my daughter is especially is so prolific in creating art.....
I too get rid of the bigger project when they're not as played with.
We have binders filled with artwork and handwriting samples that size. Large artwork that took hours to create by older children are kept in a giant art envelope. One canvas painting of a whale is hanging in a bathroom. I keep a few special art pieces my children have made over the years, stored in containers. Their names and dates are on the bottom/back of each piece. I take pictures of crafts and projects and we display them for a while before I toss them.
Each of my children have a wooden box to put keep-sakes in, and that is where they store any art work which is precious to them. That way I don't need to make any decisions :)
I do always keep pictures which have been painted especially for me. Those usually get framed and are on the wall in our bedroom.
I have some in boxes, some I photograph, and some goes straight in the trash. Heartless but we have limited space!
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