Managing Kid Artwork

For those of you with young kids, you know the deluge of artwork coming home to you is going to be tremendous. My kids create at school, they create at home. They create art early and often, and while I am proud of every little doodle, the amount of it can be overwhelming. I have tried a few different methods and landed on one that works well for our family.

1) Have one place to corral all of the artwork.

I used to sort art every day and it became too much to manage. My mother in law had a great idea that she used- one basket for all work and then deal with it semi-regularly. So I have a basket that I keep on a high shelf and it holds all of the completed artwork. This serves two purposes- it is a place to put the art so that it doesn’t take over my counters, and it also is a “holding place” for art, just in case any piece of artwork is asked for a few days after it comes home.

As you can see, the table underneath has also become artwork in and of itself.

2) Have a place to showcase any favorites.

We have a few clips on our wall to showcase a few recent creations so that we can enjoy them. These clips hold more than one piece of paper and art can be easily rotated. This could also be your fridge, taped up photos, actual frames that you hang, etc. The point is that one spot to showcase can help to contain the artwork.

3) Go through the basket of art regularly (monthly, bi-monthly)

As soon as the basket gets full, I set a time to go through it (alone!), take photos of the art, and choose any pieces that I would like to save. I have a blank white poster board to use as a backdrop and I take the pictures in a sunny area. As you can see, I am not a photographer, so these are my only real tips on this, haha.

Right after I take photos, I use Google Photos to save them into the art albums, with an album for each kid and each year.

4) Make an art book- if you want to!

I have seen a lot of ads for making photo books of your kids art. There are services like Artkive, where you can mail the actual art to be professionally photographed and put into a book. Or you can use the photos you took to make a book. with Shutterfly or similar companies. I have not done this yet, but since I have the photos, I have the option to do this later and perhaps make a book that spans numerous years.

5) Recycle the art once I have chosen what to photograph and what to keep.

Many times, this art is more than a few days old, has not been asked for and we have a photo of anything they have spent significant time on. I feel fairly confident that the kids will not ask for it again and I am prepared to show them the photos if they do.

6) Have a place for any art you choose to keep.

I have a file box for each child that has a file for each year of school and other important documents. You can find tutorials on these photo boxes many places online. This is the one I used: https://www.abowlfulloflemons.net/2013/07/keepsake-boxes.html

I am using this file box not only as a final destination for art/school photos/important papers, but also a set limit for what can be kept (knowing that I have much more digitally, if I want to see it later).

So there you have it- how to manage kid’s artwork and save your walls and countertops from being overrun.

Happy coloring (and painting, and dot dot markering, and drawing)!