One of my favorite things about picking the kids up from preschool is watching how excited they get when they show me what they created in class that day. Painting, cutting, glueing, coloring, yarn, etc. etc. They love it! And I love it. Except, what do I do with it all? What do you guys do with it? I need some suggestions. I usually keep it around for a couple of weeks, hanging on the fridge or perched on their dresser. But then, after picking it up for the umpteenth time and taping or glueing it back together (spurred on by the inconsolable tears of the preschooler), I (sshhhh, don't tell) throw it away. I mean, it piles up and piles up. And I have enough of my own piles to shuffle around. :) But then the mom guilt kicks in. Kevin's mom still mails things she finds that Kevin made 25 years ago and I love that she does that. It's so sweet. We just don't have the room to save everything they make. So I need some suggestions. I've scoured blogville trying to discover what other moms out there do, hoping from some inspiration. What do you do with the things your kids make?
9 comments:
I too throw a lot of stuff away but, I have a box up in my closet of the special things, like handprints, poems, gifts they give me. They each have their own box, it's been fun to look through them at some of the things they did in preschool (so I have ideas for my preschool). My cousin Amy had a cute link of a tutorial how to make your file folders cute with fabric. I was going to try to do something like that to organize all the mess too in my house. Maybe put all their creations by grade or ages in file folders etc. Check out her blog.
I keep my most favorite (or their most favorite) papers and then put each paper in a page protector and then in a binder. I have 1 binder per child per school year. Is that going to be a lot of binders after 12 years of school for 3 boys? Yes, but for now I LOVE to see their progress and they LOVE to go through their books and remember the fun school times they had. It doesn't take a lot of work. I have one file drawer that I keep all of those "special" papers and then about 3x a school year I will organize them (per kid) and stick them in the binder.
I have a large box that I keep in the top of Livvy's closet where I keep the favorites. I throw lots of papers away as the others, but I keep other stuff in a box. I chose a box because some of the craft stuff she brings home isn't flat. So far, that works okay. (Be sure to date the project/ paper).
I do the same thing, I got a big red box from Ikea (that matches my house) and I keep it in the closet. I have folders in there and they are marked K, 1st, etc. I put anything really special in there. I also made a really cool mag. board for each of my kids and if there is something they really like they hang it on their board and then when it's full I take that stuff down and put it in their file box. Another thing I do is for stuff that is big and bulky I often take a picture of it and I'll save the picture not the object. :0 Hope that helps. :) It's an ongoing problem, but I figure I'll love it in the future. :)
Well my little one doesn't create artwork yet, but I heard this idea. Take a close pic of the artwork, just so it's completely in frame. Then you can get a digital picture frame and have all the artwork in one sitting.
I think throwing some stuff away is inevitable, there is SO much... but I have a box for each kid that I keep the things I find special in- a portfolio in a way, and I put the stuff in the back, so it's kind of in order to their skill levels. I think it'll be neat to share with them, but it's the memories I have from it that holds special.
My sisters and I made these portfolios on year at Thanksgiving which have an envelope for each year and you keep the more significant things (report cards, handprints, special projects) and that it is nicely organized by school year and looks really cute.
http://picasaweb.google.com/angbrimwil/MyProjects?authkey=PJIwzAYM8AQ#5252297176162469826
They are pretty easy to make, just a little time consuming. Though I was enduring morning sickness when I made mine and so everything was time consuming and hard to do. I can show you sometime. And my sister always found this cute idea for displaying art work:
http://angbrimwil.blogspot.com/2009/08/art-of-display.html
a lady i knew had a good idea- she gets empty pizza boxes (just ask for an extra one when you order one), and has one for each year for each kid, so when its full its full - no more things to put in it, so you dont end up storing tons but still save quite a bit of special things they make.
I'm all about the scanner. YOu can scan (or take a pic as Jessie suggested) and keep a digital file of it. If it is too big for the scanner take a pic of them holding it so you can see exactly how big/old they are when they made it. I keep a few. But I'm all over the digital thing with it. Hope you find a good solution that works for you. There are a lot of good ideas here.
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