Inside: Learn how to preserve kids’ artwork in creative ways that won’t clutter up your home!
As a parent, you want to encourage your child’s sense of creativity. If they want to paint, draw, color, or otherwise create, so be it – and when they’re finished, you’re happy to proudly display their artwork on the fridge for all to see…
Until that artwork multiplies. Your kids keep creating new projects and crafts, but the front of the fridge is totally full – and looking more cluttered by the day.
It’s time to find a storage solution that works. You need to preserve your kids’ artwork without cluttering your home – and there are a few ways you can do it.
Help! What To Do With Kids Artwork!
You don’t want to throw all of your child’s artwork in the trash. But at the same time, you don’t want it taking over your entire house.
And if you’re the parent of a child who loves to be creative, you know it becomes a problem more quickly than you may realize. Check out this post for helpful tips for organizing their arts & craft supplies.
But what do you do with old kids’ artwork?
You declutter some of it and use creative ways to save and display special pieces!
Storing your child’s artwork is a great way to show them it’s important and save it so you can look back on it in the future – a keepsake and a time capsule into your child’s mind when they made it.
Not sure how to preserve their artwork? Keep reading for a few simple, smart suggestions.
How To Preserve Children’s Artwork By Creating… Artwork!
Not sure how to easily save your child’s art? With a little creativity, you can keep it forever without cluttering up your home by making it into… art.
Here are a few ways you can do it:
Make A Homemade Scrapbook Each Year To Preserve Artwork
Capturing your child’s artwork in a scrapbook is an easy way to preserve pieces for years to come. Start a new one each year and fill it up as the months progress, and you’ll be able to watch your child’s art skills change over time!
Create a Collage With Little Pieces of Kids Artwork
A fun way to preserve the memories of your child’s artwork is to create a collage! By taking little bits and pieces from their artwork, you can create something totally new and exciting that represents all of their hard work.
You can either print out pictures to DIY it yourself or use a great tool like Canva to create your collage digitally.
Make a Wall Art Gallery to Display Kids Artwork
Gallery walls can be a great way to feature the work of your in-house artist. By limiting the number of frames, you and your little one will have to determine which pieces get put on display and which ones go into storage or into the recycling bin.
How to Use the Digital Age to Preserve Kids Art
If you don’t have a ton of physical space at home to store your child’s actual art, you may have no choice other than to get rid of a lot of it. But thanks to technology, that doesn’t mean it’s gone forever. In fact, you can preserve your child’s artwork electronically forever.
Here’s how to preserve kids artwork in your home:
Upload Digital Pictures of Kids Artwork to the Cloud
Platforms like Google Drive offer a limited amount of storage space for free. Dropbox is another great option.
Sign up for an online cloud storage service and save photos or scanned images of your child’s artwork to the cloud. You can even record brief videos of them showing off their latest creation!
Create a Picture Book of the Most Special Pieces
Through services like Snapfish or Shutterfly you can create and order hardcover books filled with whatever images you’d like! Scan pictures of your child’s artwork and upload them to the site to fill those pages – then order a copy for your coffee table!
Use Kids Art to Create Gifts and Keepsakes
Snapfish and Shutterfly also allow you to create custom gifts. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives will appreciate a little gift or keepsake featuring your little one’s greatest artwork. Put their artwork on mousepads, coffee mugs, travel tumblers, calendars, journal covers, or whatever else you want.
How to Keep Kids Artwork from Cluttering Up Your Home
If you’re on a mission to avoid the clutter created by kids’ artwork, it’s time to put a plan in place! Don’t let your kids just leave their artwork hanging around. Instead, establish a process to make sure it ends up where it belongs.
As far as where that could be, you have some different options:
Have a Designated Bin or Storage Area for Daily Artwork
If your little artist creates a LOT of art that they want you to see, an “inbox” of sorts could make a lot of sense! Set up a bin, a folder, a box, or some other specific spot where your child can easily access their pieces.
When they’re done working on them, assign a place for them to go to be stored.
Keep What Feels Special – and Toss the Rest
Kids create a lot of artwork and you don’t need to keep it all. It can become an overwhelming amount for you and them. As you learn how to preserve kids’ artwork in your home, it’s also ok to let go of quite a bit of it.
When children are very young, you can set aside whichever pieces you find most meaningful. As they get a little older, they should be part of the process of deciding what stays and what goes.
With our kids, we had them each pick out a special box to store their favorite pieces. Stores like Homegoods or Michaels have quite a few options. We told them what size was best and they got to pick the print.
The kids then selected which pieces they wanted to keep to store in their special box. When the box starts to get full, they have to go through and re-sort it and decide what stays and what goes. As my kids have gotten older, they now manage it completely on their own.
It keeps our home from getting cluttered up with artwork, but also gives them ownership over keeping their favorite pieces and decluttering the rest.
There are many ways to preserve kids’ masterpieces that won’t clutter up your home!
By implementing a storage solution that works for you and your child, you can keep the art that matters most and preserve those special memories forever – without letting it totally take over your home.
Sign up on the form below and get weekly decluttering tips sent straight to your inbox! You’ll also get the free 5 Areas to Declutter in 10-Minutes Checklist to help you get started decluttering right away.
