What To Do With Kids' Art

What To Do With Kids’ Art

Kids are prolific artists. While we love seeing their work, the accumulation of it can begin to feel overwhelming. I was just discussing this topic with a Virtual Organizing client last week, and I figured this would be a great newsletter tutorial!

I often hear from clients who tell  me “My mom just gave me three boxes of stuff she’d been saving from my childhood. I have nowhere to put it. What am I going to do with this stuff?” It’s often viewed as a burden rather than a blessing. 

My mom did something I am so very grateful for. She kept a small file box (half the size of a bankers box or smaller) with art and projects from my and my siblings' childhoods. I had a file in that file box with my special stuff. Books I’d written as a first grader, Mother's Day cards I made, particularly well composed drawings and the like. One. File. She doesn’t have multiple garage-sized bins for us. And I am so grateful for that.

I spent 30 minutes going through it on a recent visit, and I really enjoyed those 30 minutes. It was really purposeful and accessible and pared down to the true treasures. If it was a giant bin (or two, or three) in the garage, I never would’ve taken the time to dig it out and look through it. And I certainly would have no place for it if she made me take it home. 

Below is my favorite method for handling kids’ art, and it can apply to things like greeting cards and other keepsakes too. Trust me, your kids will thank you for it when they grow up.

My Favorite Method for Saving Kids' Art

1. Get one bin for each child for the art work that makes the cut and you are going to keep, the True Treasures. You decide on the bin size that works for your family and space available, but the key is as the years go on, it is always limited to one bin. This means you'll have to review it whenever it gets full, and edit the low hanging fruit to make room for more current masterpieces.

Under-bed bins can work well for this because they can hold oversized art and projects, and are accessible to easily add more throughout the year. Store art inside your home if at all possible, but if it must go in the garage or basement, gasket bins like this can help protect the paper from moisture.

2. Gather all the art and projects in one place where you can spread out. If your child is old enough and you think he or she would handle it well, get them involved in the process. In this step you will be separating the art into 3 categories:
1. True Treasure (keep)
2. Pretty Special (to photograph and then get rid of)
3. trash/recycling

Try to make quick decisions and avoid reminiscing too much.

3. After you've categorized all the art and projects, photograph the art that is Pretty Special but doesn’t make the “True Treasure” cut. Use a bright white background such as a poster board or foam core board, and make sure you have good lighting. Or you can have Artkive do it for you.

4. Have the photos printed into an album. This is the key for a lot of people to feeling ok with parting with the art. Chatbooks is the easiest program I've found for this. Or if you had Artkive photograph the art for you, they will print the book.

You get a beautiful, curated album where you can actually sit down together and enjoy and appreciate the art. It’s a great way to honor the art, and it's much more accessible than storing it in a box in the closet or the garage that rarely or never gets looked at or appreciated.

This is a fantastic article on the topic of letting go of your child's art, and I found it very eye-opening. I hope you will too!

I hope you've found this blog post helpful, and that you'll try some of these ideas as the art piles up.

And if you're ready to try Virtual Organizing and create a less stressful and more functional home, I'm here to help. We can do this!