Containing the Kid Art

This handsome clothespin butterfly is clipped proudly to the memo pad holder on my fridge, along with a half dozen other pieces of Bee's artwork.

Bee produces art at an astonishing rate. Between her preschool art, and the masterpieces she creates at home everyday, I can hardly keep up. Kid art is a major source of paper clutter in our home.

Fortunately, I've developed a system for keeping it under control. First, the art gets prominently displayed on the fridge for a couple of weeks. Then, to make room for new art, it gets moved to this plastic storage box, which is labeled and stored in Bee's closet:


At the end of the school year, we clean out the box. Bee and I each choose some favorite pieces, and we put them in sheet protectors, in a three-ring binder with a clear front pocket. This is Bee's preschool binder:


Here are some samples of Bee's artwork at age 3:


I've covered Bee's name for privacy, but I note her name, age, and any special stories or memories at the bottom of each piece. Some pieces are slightly too big to fit in the sheet protectors, so I cut them down if I can. If there's a really big or bulky project that just will not fit, and Bee really loves it, we either keep it in the storage box, or snap a photo of it, and put it in her binder. The idea is to keep the volume of art manageable.

Some parents have a hard time parting with any of their kids' art, but you just can't keep everything! I choose the pieces that are the most unique, and most indicative of Bee's artistic ability. The too-wet fingerpaintings that are nothing more than blobs, scribbled coloring pages, and paper plates covered with magazine cut-outs are easy to part with. I do have a sample of Bee's first scribbling, but I don't need to keep all of them!

Remember that your sentimental attachment to things can become a burden to your kids. When I got my first apartment, my Mom brought over a giant box full of every greeting card I had ever received in my entire life--birthdays, valentines, communion, baptism. She had a personal attachment to these cards, and she thought that I would definitely want them. The problem is that, aside from a special few, I didn't even know or remember most of the people who gave them to me. For a long time, I struggled with guilt because I knew they were important to her, but they weren't important to me, and I was the one who had to move and store them all the time. Eventually, I recycled nearly all of them.

If you really struggle with letting go of kid art, try snapping photos of each piece, and burning them to a CD. You could even have them printed and bound at Kinkos or Copyworks, into your own kid art coffee table book! If there's a really special piece that's too big for your binder, you can frame it, as I did with this self portrait that Bee made in preschool:


Also, Family Fun has instructions for decoupaging a kid art collage onto a large, stretched canvas. I've purchased these for scrapbooking projects at Dick Blick Art Supplies. They aren't expensive, and they're really fun to work with.

With these ideas in mind, you can display the work of your budding artist, and keep the paper clutter under control.