Dealing with Kids’ Artwork Revisited

A lot of kids are ending school this week and they are going to walk home with their backpacks stuffed full of artwork.  What do you do with all of that?  We get lots of questions on our blog asking for ideas on how to store kids’ artwork so I thought we should revisit this topic.

I went back and found an old post I wrote and coincidentally exactly one year ago today this post was published.  

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, for my own sanity I needed to create a system that would be easy to access, the kids could take ownership of it, and most importantly I would make sure the artwork was saved and overcome my mommy guilt. With those goals in mind I set out to create my perfect system and here are the three steps I used to make it pain-free.

Step One: Find a place in your house that will be dedicated to displaying artwork. It could be a playroom wall, a space at the top of the stairs, the side of your refrigerator, or even above your coat hooks. I chose a spot off my kitchen close to my office area. I decided to use corkboard because of the organic look and I wanted the entire wall covered with something. My space is exactly 25″ wide so it was perfect for placing two 12″ corkboard squares next to one another.

Photo of our art gallery

Step Two: At the end of every month all of the artwork comes down from the corkboard and the kids sort it into four piles. This is where the ownership aspect comes into play with the kids now in control of the paper chaos.

The four piles are:

1. Keep for their portfolio
2. Hang up in their room
3. Give to grandparents/family (There is nothing better for grandparents when they receive an envelope in the mail of artwork from their grandchild.  Think of the bonus points you would win with your mother-in-law.)
4. Place lovingly in the trash

But what do you do with all of those certificates or school papers?  The Container Store comes to the rescue AGAIN.  (Btw: I don’t get paid to promote The Container Store.  I just have a genuine lust for this store.) I chose to organize the box by year…no cutesy scrapbook paper, no cover sheet,  NADA.

Here are the boxes I use:

and here’s a shot of my own son’s memory box:

I use file folders and organize items by year.  I keep a box of items that need to be filed on the floor of their closet and when the box gets full, I dump it into the current year’s file folder.  Since kids love to see what they’ve accomplished I think it’s fun for kids to go through their memory boxes occasionally vs. keeping them somewhere hidden and handing the box over to them when they are grown up.  Some of the items I file away are birthday invitations, achievement awards, journals from their classroom, report cards, birthday cards, our yearly Christmas card, and any other worthy keepsakes.  However, I do not keep any artwork in this box.  Remember, the only artwork I keep is stored in their portfolio’s and I DON’T feel one ounce of guilt.

Happy Organizing!