do you have a craft y child?

So here is my question - if you have a child who likes to craft stuff what do you do with all the stuff they craft? I hate having hoards of papers everywhere and lord knows we already have a ton of papers from school. My kids both like to draw, paint, etc. and they hate it when I throw things away but I just can't handle the mess. What do you do with it all?

thanks

 

I chunk it when they aren't looking. Both mine like to dO artsy stuff but we only keeP a few things. I have these really cool frames from vat19 that are front load and we change out pieces every few weeks

 

We have have THIS cart. I put labels and pictures on each drawer for things like crayons, glue, scissors, paper, etc. We didn't get it from the place listed here, but wanted to show you which one it was. I think I may have ordered it from Target, but I'm not sure.

ETA: Sorry, I misread your ?. You wanted to know what to do with their creations. We usually keep them for a bit, but lately the ones that aren't keep worthy, we take pictures of. Then they can put a picture of their "masterpiece" in a photo album.

 

I was going to suggest taking a picture of their creations. And at the end of the year, or whatever amount of time you prefer, you can put the photos into a photo album or you could make a photo book of their artwork.

For me, right now, I pitch most of it. Stuff they create with me, I do keep in their individual folders. They are not in school yet, so I will need to do something for when they are.

 

I toss almost all of it. ardon: We just don't have the storage for it all and on top of what they do at home, they bring home sooooooooooo much from school. If it's a creation that a lot of time and effort was spent on, then I do save it. But for every 50 things done, there is maybe 1 that I save. Fortunately, mine have never questioned it. I do the same as TabbiSue and chuck it when they aren't looking. I let it pile up, then purge while they are sleeping.

I do something different with school work (found this online? in a mag? somewhere). I have 2 underbed storage boxes. I toss all their school work in there and then at the end of the year, I will go through it and pick out a few things to save.

I also, as Meaghan suggested, take pictures of some of it. Those go into an album with our regular pictures.

And last but not least, there are a few things that stay on my desk. When my DD takes the time to "write" out a lengthy note "so I don't miss her", I keep it in eyesight because she will check.

 

When they were younger the majority got chucked out, there was just too much and it was all very same-y. We used to go through the pile every month or so. Now they're older they tend to take longer on each picture, and also just have less time between school and activities, so there is not the same volume of artwork and proportionally more can be kept. Stuff from school tends to come home in bulk once or twice a year so that just gets sorted through when it arrives.

I find one of the easiest ways to keep stuff is to have a ring-binder folder filled with those A4 plastic wallets, then you can fit two pictures back to back in each wallet, and easily have 100+ wallets in the folder which hardly takes up any space. The other thing with them being older is they can have proper sketch books to draw in, which stay on the art bookcase they have. Generally a sketchbook with a hundred pages is not more than half an inch thick, and because it's bound you don't get drawings left all over the place, so that's also quite an effective way to keep things organised.

The only other tip I have is to date the pictures you decide to keep. It's nice when you look back to know how old they were when they drew/painted something.

 

I toss a lot of it, but the especially neat things I keep in a scrapbook storage box that I have for each year. I intend to take pictures of all of those and make photo books sometime this year. I also decorated 2 yardsticks with ribbon (to cover the Lowes advertising) and attached clothes pins to it to hang their art in their art room, and we rotate those. My girls have an entire craft/toy room because I was tired of it taking over the main floor.

 

I have been taking pictures of their artwork for several years now. I only take pictures of the things that they ask me to.

 

My DD loves to draw. She draws me a picture almost every day. I love her creativity and her desire to give gifts, but can't stand the paper everywhere. I got her a 3-ring binder and all of her work now goes in there. She knows she only has so much space, so she is pickier about what she keeps, too.