What Do I Do with All the Precious Projects Made by My Kids?

M., My sons are grown now and I am so happy I saved some things from their early years. I have a plastic footlocker for each of them and here is how I decided what to save:

anything with a hand or foot print on it

any drawing that was particularly interesting or with a different medium like collage

writing samples of different ages or stories they wrote

big reports for the year

anything they made for me or their dad

As they get older you save less because it is mostly written. But on rainy days I would get out the lockers and they loved looking at their own stuff from when they were little.

When the trunk got full I went through it and threw stuff out if I wanted to put more in. A.

I struggle with the same thing. I finally decided that I would only keep the ones that had handprints or footprints (sentimental & shows growth). Outside of that - it has to be something pretty spectacular to save. We display everything as it comes home - keep it up for a week or so & then it gets pitched.... there is just WAY to much to keep. I have a girlfriend that bought an under the bed storage box - she has one under each kids bed. She tucks only the "special" things in each box... nice way to organize & keep separate... Hope this helps.

Pack some away so he can see his work later in life. Tell him you have to get rid of it to make room for the new "work of the month" to hang. That way he can see how long it takes to fill the clothesline and appreciate that soon he'll be filling it again.

Hi M.-
My kids are 8, 5, 4, and my two girls could do art projects all day long - especially with this weather we've been having.
Here are a few ideas I've received, and have used successfully at our house:
Scan the art work, and save it digitally in their own file on the computer. You could turn it into a slide show later, and let them watch over and over.
Some of the bigger pieces that just can't be saved very well, I have the artist hold the piece and then take their picture with it. Then I'll put that picture in the same art work file on the computer.
We will save a small storage bin (Big shoe box size) worth of projects each year. Any more than what can fit in the box just cannot stay. It's so easy to get overloaded with their beautiful art work!
Hope that helps!

A.

I heard a great idea from another mom. Take pictures of each project and then print them out for a scrapbook or photo album. You can keep the most cherished in a container but every single thing can be captured in a book! Good luck :)

When it's a drawings or paintings i save some and when i have to send a note or thank you to someone like a family member i cut a square of the picture and paste it on the front of a blank notecard. This way i don't have to throw it away and loved ones get something personal from my daughter.

Dear M.,

I have two kids that bring home a ton of art work every week. I try to hang up everything. Then at the end of the week, I let my kids pick different pieces to send to family members who live farther away. They also pick a couple of pieces that go to grandma's down the street. I then pack the rest of them up and then go through them at the end of the year and only keep two things per a year. Lately we have been saving the things that I would normaly throw away to send to some of the soldiers over seas that don't get any letters or pictures. My kids seem to love this and it gives the soldiers a little joy and then I know that I tried to do my best with the kids stuff. I say share the pleasure of looking at their art work. Good luck.
B.

Check out Snapfish.com..... My MIL and SIL just used that site to make books of my nephews art work. It was really neat looking. That would be a special way of keeping projects with out drowning in paper.

Hello, I know you have alot of responses already. But I have 3 boys ages 13,9, and an almost 7 year old. What I have done since they started school is I would hang there pictures up for a week then I have 3 rubbermaid containers in storage with their names on them that I put their artwork,projects in. Also I put their old school pictures,sports pictures,report cards,rewards etc in their as well. This way when they are older and ready to move out on their own and have their own families they can share them with their own children. My mother kind of did the samething for us and my kids love seeing them to this day.I know people mentioned snapfish and nursing homes etc which is a great idea but I know when my children look at my stuff when I was little they just think it is so neat. Good Luck with whatever you decide.

I saved a couple things from each year for my girls. They are going into scrapbooks for them. Unfortunately we did not have digital cameras then. Save a few really great ones (but only ones that will fit into a scrapbook) and then taking pictures of the rest to put in the book. I do have to do a couple shadow boxes. My girls were both in Campfire and I saved all their beads and patches. Be creative and have fun and as they get older, let them help

Hi there, I don't know if this will be helpful or not, and I am not sure exactly how I feel about this, but I have heard of taking pictures of your children's artwork. Then you still can remember what they did, and it takes less space to store. Then you could make a photo album of the pictures of their artwork or if you have a digital camera store them on your computer and they take up even less space. That being said, you still have to throw the artwork out and don't keep the original works. Could you make a scrapbook or several scrapbooks of the actual artwork? It sounds like you have tons so that could be too time consuming to do. I don't have children in school or preschool yet (soon though) and have done a few things at home with my children so I have actually been thinking about what I should do with artwork once we accumulate some. Still undecided. Hope this helps and if not I hope someone else has a brilliant idea that will help. C.

Just a suggestion. You can let the children choose their most cherished work. Try creating a hope chest for each child. I made scrap books for my children. They got them one Christmas when they were all grown up. They cherish them now. Another suggestion would be to take pictures of them with their projects and keep the pictures for the scrap book. Let me know how it goes.This would be one way to be able to get rid of the clutter and still be able to capture a photo of the child with his/her cherished project.

Ones that are just artwork on paper make scrapbooks if you don't have time store in totes. I'm 48 and have 3 grown children. Over the years I have boxes of their school work art etc., and now I'm making scrapbooks of each child with there pics and stuff they've done. I even have report cards. I won't let my kids have them yet but some day when I get older or pass on they will have these to enjoy.

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!

M., I got a big box made out of cardboard with a lid that is removable. we put in the ones "They" wanted to save. turns out they want to save probably way less than you do lol. Then I also put a cork board in their bedrooms with tacks to hang up the ones they wanted to display. again they wanted to hang way less than I did. As one of the other moms mentioned Its the process not the product that the teachers are aiming for at this age. of course it goes without saying you will have the current masterpiece hanging on the fridge. another way to get them out of site is to Mail them to friends and family. that way they are being enjoyed by grandma and grandpa and aunts uncles etc and gets rid of the guilt over not "saving" every color stroke.
S.

Hey M., at our son's school's suggestion we got Patrick an "Art Box" and put all his projects and drawing, paintings, whatever in there after a short period of display. We look at them sometimes together. His work is validated and we don't drown in it!

Though late...thought I would share this idea I saw on Rachel Ray about clutter control. This woman said to take a picture of the projects and scrapbook them!

Take digital pictures of the art projects and save your pictures either in online album (shutterfly and picassa will keep your digital images forever) or burn them onto a CD of pictures or put them into a scrapbook that you can share later with your kids. My Mom taught me to keep a few things from every year rather than trying to keep 100% of the materials that come home from school. Ask grandparents, aunts, uncles if they would welcome a piece of artwork from your children? My Mom always wanted stuff from her grandchildren while my mother-in-law wanted to know about what they made but did not have as much display space available.

I use a large under the bed storage container and put them in there. My kids are 6 and 9 and um, there are LOTS of art projects. Actually when they got older, there were less, so there is hope for you. :)

Go through and get rid of the average ones, save the really neat ones, any with hand prints, foot prints or their first attempts at writing. Don't bother saving worksheet types (that hopefully they don't do at that age!) where it's just fill in the answer (2+3 is always going to be 5 and it's not worth saving a worksheet where they wrote 5. But saving the sheet where they wrote all their numbers is worth saving).

Good luck...

I chose 10-15 projects and scanned them using a computer scanner. Now they're preserved for a long time because dust and moisture won't impact the electronic files. Easy to store as well!

I would suggest taking pictures of the projects and then uploading the pictures onto snapfish and having books created that showcase the projects....that way you can keep them and the memories, without the clutter! Your kids will also probably be very excited to see their work turned into a book!

One great way to keep them all is to take digital pictures of them. Then you can decide what to display, make a scrapbook of them, put them on CD, whatever. And you can look back and talk about them without them getting ruined.

I saved the ones they made a big deal about and the ones I loved like handprints etc and then I keep them in a case I got from Lillian vernon it says scool memories on it and they personalize it with your childs name. I have a 2nd grader and still am abotle to fit her stuff in there and I too ahve two preschoolers and started to save all there goodies as well. Every now and then I will go though it and get rid of more that do not have that special spark anymore. Hope this helps
J.

I've never done this myself, but a friend of mine with 2 kids who is much more organized than I am and does a lot of scrapbooking takes a picture of her kids' projects/artwork for her/their scrapbooks and then tosses the actual items, saving only the most precious creations for posterity. As for me, maybe I'm heartless, but my kids know that while I love their handiwork, it can't accumulate around the house forever, so I routinely throw everything away since there will always be more incoming projects a minute later. My kids don't seem bothered by it, and I'm not either. It's a very liberating mindset when you realize how much stuff you'd otherwise have to find places for and/or feel guilty about throwing away.

Take a picture of these so you can "save" them digitally while freeing up room in your home. You can take a pic of a bunch of a time or one picture of each. This is what I plan to do with all my daughter's artwork.

Ask your children which project they would like to keep and which ones to throw away and decide that way.

As a horrible packrat I understand this problem. My solution has been to take a few digital pictures of each project - some with the child holding their art and some just of the project. Then every year I save the one or two really special things and the rest I get rid of.

Oprah had Peter Walsh, the declutter expert, on her show about 2 months ago. He recommended taking pictures and making them in to a photo book on Snapfish.com.

Do you have any relatives that would like any? My two kids are the only next generation, with lots of aunts, so they have always appreciated a thing or two.

I too have a ton of projects that my daughter has made. I couldn't choose what to keep or not so I just put everything in a big box that she made that year and put it away for when she gets older to look at. It does get less once they get to kindergarten.

I put up cork board on the walls of my basement stairs all down to the basement. I just hang the best ones for our "museumm." I love it!

I don't try to keep everything. At the end of every school year, I sit on the floor and go through everything. I choose my favorites and the pieces that are good representations of what they are doing at that time. It ends up to be a box per year, and those go in the basement for storage.

Another thought:
Not everything they produce is meant to be kept forever, just the process of creating is what is good for them. We don't need to gush about and display everything they do...they need to find SELF satisfaction in their work.

I would save some favorites, and then take pictures of the rest. I've even heard of people scanning the smaller items.

You could get an art portfolio to store them in. They sell some at Michaels. You could then store the portfolio in a closet or under a bed. And, when he's "all grown up", you can hand him the portfolio so he can see all his artwork!

I scan my son's art into my computer (or take a photo if it's a 3-D item or too large to scan) and load them to a photo storing website like Kodak Gallery www.kodakgallery.com or Shutterfly www.shutterfly.com

Then, when the school year is over I am going to create an art book to keep all the memories in a small, compact option! I have kept a few favorites to hang on our fridge but the rest of his marvelous creations go to Aunties, Uncles and Grandparents when we visit them! He just loves presenting his art to his loved ones and they get to share in his development. Win-win!

I have two suggestions... for projects that are done on regular paper, you could put them in an album so that they're all in one place and not scattered throughout your home. The second idea would be to take a photo of each project, and put them in a photo album this way - and donate the originals to a nursing home. This way, you (and your son) can enjoy and remember the projects through the years, without having the clutter overwhelm your home. Good luck!