What To Do With Your Kid’s Artwork

by Crisler Herndon · September 14, 2017

What To Do With Your Kid’s Artwork

What in the world do you do with all of your kid’s artwork? My kids bring home so many beautiful doodles and masterpieces every week. I am super sentimental and really love each one of them. Let’s be honest though, I am never going to hang my 3-year-old’s single green line across the page in my home. My daughter wants to be an artist when she grows up and is always thoughtfully giving me artwork.

As awesome as it seems, you just cannot keep all of it. You definitely do not want to hurt their feelings, but there is so much. It will take over your entire house. We have one of those tall, industrial filing cabinets. One entire drawer was slam full of artwork. I finally went through the drawer and sorted out all of the artwork. I realized that some of the artwork I thought was awesome two years ago really isn’t now. Our kids grow and change and so does their artwork. I do want to still keep a few things for them when they get older, but not the ridiculous amount that was in that drawer.

Here are a few ways I keep art from taking over my home.

Make a place to display their art.

I made them a place to display their current favorites. Each kid has a row and can hang their favorite artwork on the wall for everyone to see. It makes them really happy to show off their newest art collections when we have people over. When the clips are all full, they must take one thing down to replace it. My son usually throws his removed art away, while my daughter gifts it to a grandparent or teacher.

Don’t let it pile up.

Process them as soon as they come home. Don’t let them sit on the counter for days because you are not sure what to do with the art. Make a decision. Toss, scan then toss, display, or keep. The longer you wait, the more you will have to go through, and the more overwhelming it will be.

Digital copies.

Keep digital copies. If the artwork isn’t something that you just absolutely love, but want to keep the sweet memory, scan it. There are several apps out there that can capture the detail beautifully so you can keep the memory, but not the physical paper. I use Google Photo Scan. It does a good job for me. It loads the photos into my cloud so I can put them in folders for each child. Scannable and Keepy are popular as well, but I have no experience with them.

Limit what you keep.

Limit yourself to what you can keep. I have one hanging file folder where I keep their art. If it is too full, I will go through and scan the less important pieces and toss the original.

Decorate!

Decorate your house with it. At the end of 1st grade, my daughter came home with a few amazing pieces that she created during art that year. We framed them and hung them on the wall. She feels proud and Mama likes to show it off. I plan to add to it and eventually have a gallery wall of only the absolute best pieces. Having something my babies created hanging in my home is much more meaningful than some random art by a stranger.