From the moment their chubby fingers could first hold a crayon, my children have loved drawing and colouring, and getting creative with paints, paper and glue to produce their mini masterpieces. Their artwork has taken over the door to our dining room and the side of the bookcase. I love displaying it. Whilst I’d love to keep all their creations, they’re such prolific little artists that it wouldn’t be too long before my house disappeared under a mountain of children’s artwork.
Having a blog has helped me to save some of the children’s creations. I now have photos of many creations that ultimately ended up in the recycling pile or the bin. I try and keep some of their pictures. Each child has an artwork folder to store selected pieces, such as the first drawing, first painting and other mini masterpieces that I loved.
Jessica and Sophie both helped customise their folders. They used stickers and coloured pencils or crayons to create the front cover drawing. I then added the self-adhesive foam letters to finish it. When they create something I might want to keep, I write the date on the back of their creations before displaying them. This makes it easier later on to label them after they are added to the folder.
It’s lovely to be able to look back and see how they’ve progressed with their creative skills over time. Jessica is now producing some wonderfully recognisable drawings. This picture of a mouse that she drew on the inside of her colouring book is one of my favourites.
I recycle some of the paintings which don’t make it into the folder to create backgrounds for making cards. Having a big family means that we do a lot of card making so it’s a very good way of re-using some of Jessica and Sophie’s creations!
Do you keep or reuse any of your children’s artwork? How do you store it?
What a lovely idea – particularly like the greeting cards. Jet loves to make cards for everyone so I’m definitely going to try this x
Thank you – I love reusing them for cards and they do make lovely backgrounds 🙂
We have artwork folders too, it’s lovely to look back at all their masterpieces 🙂
It is, isn’t it? I love looking back over the girls’ creations 🙂
Oh gosh these are such lovely ideas.xx
Thank you 🙂
That’s genius! I wish I’d thought of it several years ago! We keep a selection on the walls of the kitchen cupboards and there’s some other stuff on top of the wardrobe, but loads have gone to recycling.
Thank you – quite a lot of my children’s artwork has gone to recycling too – there’s only so much you can keep!
I need to do this. Like you I’ve kept loads but they’re stuck away in boxes gathering dust. #minicreations
Boxes are great for storing artwork especially bulkier things – I tend to make sure I have photographs of the things I can’t put in the folder instead.
That’s a great idea. It can be so difficult working out what to do with all the art work. I love those folders. x
Thank you Karen – it’s a great way of storing some of it 🙂
Aww! How lovely! I kept everything from when my girls were little….It’s all in storage boxes in the loft. I am more selective now. The cards are a great idea x
Thanks Kim – definitely agree with needing to be selective – there’s just too much of it otherwise!
This is so lovely, I have kept everything that Boo has made so far – and you have inspired me to create folders for it all =)
I love the idea of using old pictures for cards =)
Thanks Jenni – the folder makes it easy to look back on it all and the old pictures make great backgrounds for cards 🙂
This is great – Monkey’s are all stuffed in one file and I can’t look at them! Maybe a project for a weekend. Love the cards as well 🙂 #KidsCorner x
Thank you – it is a good way to be able to look back over them easily 🙂
I love to keep M’s artwork too, but have to be careful that I don’t keep everything. I love the idea of keeping some as background for cards, a fab idea..will be doing this now, thank you! #minicreations
Glad it’s helped inspire you – the paintings work really well as backgrounds and it is such a nice way of reusing them.
This is a lovely idea and probably better than a box because they get all out of order and are quite difficult to look back on easily. Thnx for sharing!
Thanks Tracey – I love the fact I can look back over them so easily 🙂
I LOVE this idea! Especially recycling some of the bits that don’t make it to the final cut on cards. Brilliant idea! Thanks for sharing #kidscorner x
Thank you – I love reusing the paintings when making cards and it’s so effective too 🙂
Such a great idea, I now feel really guilty that I haven’t kept Oliver’s first drawing. I am definitely going to make a folder, how lovely will it be for them to look back on when they are older!
#KidsCorner
Becky xx
What lovely ideas! Love the art work folders!
We’re the same. I’ve only recently started to actually throw some of our little bear’s arty creations away, otherwise we’d have to build a shed to store them all in! Lovely idea to make a folder and it’s wonderful that you’ve got lots of pics of their ‘makes’ on your blog 🙂
I will definitely be making a specific folder after reading this! I have so much just from my little girl, all currently in her memory box but there’s not much room for anything else!! And I love the idea of recycling some pieces for cards, they look great and make it even more personal. Brilliant ideas, thanks! #kidscorner
So funny you should post this as I just bought a scrapbook for this very purpose! I have so many bits of artwork that I have kept and now they will have a home. Such a lovely idea. Thank you for sharing in #KidsCorner x
I have boxes…. I really need to go through them and turn them into much smaller folders 🙂
such a lovely way to store them I’ve found it hard since they started nursery to keep track of it all thanks for sharing #kidscorner
The Mother says – We love this idea and those greetings cards are perfect. Thanks so much for linking to #minicreations