Pre-School and Daycare
beenbizzy
member
what to do with artwork?
beenbizzy
member
I have piles of artwork from DS that I just can't bear to part with. I've heard about taking digital photos but, honestly, that is something I would have to keep up. I have a few special places that I hang some but I'm looking for an idea of how/where to store them long term?
*I know that someday he will choose to throw them out, but right now it is my choice to keep them 
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Re: what to do with artwork?
I have all of DD's work in a scrapbook. I've cut the bigger papers to size or just cut out the main part of the picture and placed it in the scrapbook. I tossed the fingerpaint, printable color sheets, etc. in the trash and kept her "real masterpiece's".
This scrapbook has been expanded and extra inserts added.
I have a big storage tub that I toss everything she brings home in, including her religion worksheets and things she has just doodled on. My plan is, at the end of the year, I will go through it, keep what I really like and toss the rest. I know realistically I cannot keep it all, especially since she is 2 years away from kindergarten.
I am going to buy a storage tote that holds file folders and make a file folder for each year of school and put the ones I want to keep in there. I will just add another folder every year. Maybe I will even have her college research papers in there some day, LOL. Some things, like holiday crafts, I plan on framing and then storing with the rest of that holiday's decorations. She brought home the cutest ghost made out of her hands today that I am keeping and bringing out for every Halloween from now on!
I also take digital pics of the stuff I really like. I put it on FB and upload it to my FlickR so the grandparents can see what she's doing too, since we don't live near them.
I should also add that a few of her baby doodles are in her keepsake box with the year on it. I am crazy at what I save. My mom gave me a tiny shoebox of my memories and my girls already have a tote full of memories!
*ETA* We are Cyclones fans too!
We have a long strip of metal with magnets that we use to display "today's" art work. They have to take one thing down when they put a new thing up. It's our place/chance to talk about what they did/learned today at school and it's our routine first thing upon arriving home.
Not what you want to hear but I ditch most of it and take photos of the more creative non-worksheet things. At the end of each year I make a photo book of their art work from that age (eventually it will be by grade) so we can look thru it. I take photos at the end of each week as I'm cleaning out their stuff. My photo software lets me quickly file it into a "Dylan's Art work" folder so when the time (read: discounted deal) comes to make the photo book it's really quite simple and quick because it's all in one place digitally speaking.
They ADORE their photo books and love being able to sit down and look at all of their art work in one place.
I learned the hard way by saving everything our now 16 yr old ever did and refused to go down that path again because it ended up in boxes and never looked at again. This way we look at it frequently. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to get rid of all the dioramas and other huge 3-D pieces that do nothing but take up space in the storage area of our basement. He never looks at them and neither do we.
My mom is a boarder line hoarder so I try hard to really think hard about what will be of value to me and them as they get older vs what will end up taking up space and never be appreciated or viewed again.
Total score: 6 pregnancies, 5 losses, 2 amazing blessings that I'm thankful for every single day.