Tips for parents getting ready for another year, on how to organise and store children’s artwork.
There’s nothing like kids’ artwork to bring a smile to your face, but it’s amazing how fast it can accumulate.
Add each piece a child proudly brings home from school to the results of creative endeavours at home, along with every precious homemade card, message and promising scribble, and soon you’re dealing with mountainous, misshapen piles that take up huge amounts of storage space.
If you’re overwhelmed with drawings, painting and collages created by your little ones, use these clever ideas to keep their artwork intact, compact and organised.
Make a collage
Reduce the mass of artwork you have to store by combining some of your kids’ work into a collage. Simply cut out bits of different artworks and either glue them to a canvas – which can be displayed on a wall – or stick them in a dedicated scrapbook.
You can also add photos of your child (it’s especially nice to add a photo alongside a self-portrait), stickers or scrap-booking motifs to the collage.
Scan or photograph it
Instead of keeping physical copies of all of your kids’ works of art, scan or photograph them and store them on the cloud.
A number of apps are designed specifically to help you store and organise kids’ artwork. For example, ArtKive allows you photograph artwork with your smartphone, tag it and save it to the cloud. Keepy is similar but also offers editing tools, gives you the option of adding voice notes and makes it easy to share files.
You may also opt to create a digital scrapbook using dedicated software such as ScrapbookFlair, which is available for free and includes ready-made templates to get you started.
Store it in boxes or mailing tubes
Save space by storing artwork in storage boxes or mailing tubes.
If you use boxes, opt for acid-free archival storage boxes, and place layers of acid- and lignin-free tissue paper between artworks.
Make sure that you label each box or mailing tube so you know what’s inside, and store the containers in a cool, dry place.
Keep artwork in a flip file or portfolio
An advantage of storing children’s artwork in plastic sleeves – either in a binder or a flip file – is that you can easily look through and appreciate the artwork. You could use a separate file for each year, and keep it organised by adding tabs and labels. For larger pieces that don’t fit in a file, you can use an artist’s portfolio file.
Store kids’ artwork safely with XtraSpace
An ideal solution for keeping children’s artwork safe without having it take up space at home is to store it with XtraSpace. For a really affordable monthly fee, we’ll store your little ones’ masterpieces safely and securely.