The Art Situation
Honestly, we don’t do a lot of art at home with Henry. I really should work on rectifying that situation, but for now I’ll focus on the topic of this post: dealing with art that comes home from school.
There are so many things I feel all at once when Henry brings up a big pile of art from school:
- Where can we hang this so Henry feels honored?
- Do we have to hang all of this?
- What do we do with it when it’s done being hung?
- How am I simultaneously a nostalgic hoarder and a relentless purger?
So here’s the system we’ve been using lately that is working for us:
- Big pile comes home.
- I put some of the pieces in these plastic frames on the fridge. The frames help it feel not too cluttered to me.
- Other pieces I take photos of using the Artkive app and then recycle when Henry isn’t looking.
- When more piles come in, I repeat the process. I plan to keep one to two pieces a year in his scrapbook, but the rest will be scrapbooked electronically. I will print a book for him of all his art/work when I amass enough to make it interesting. I read this review of printing from the Artkive app to a book and it sounds really promising.
3 Comments
Melanie
Hi, Sara!
Thanks so much for linking to my review of Artkive. I really do love their service and the fact that I can do everything from taking photos of projects to ordering and designing my book direct from my phone. 🙂
Melanie
Kristy
Kudos to you for keeping or documenting everything that comes home! I'll keep a few of the nicer pieces on the fridge and then once or twice/year put a couple pieces away in our accordion folder for saving. All the rest go into recycling. I can't imagine what it will be like with more than one child in school since my other two are not yet school age. I think I might use the app to take photos of our saved collection. I have a hard time keeping stuff but I like the thought of saving things digitally and not necessarily having to produce anything with them but having the ability to if the kids are interested when they get older.
Lindsey [homegrown spud]
oh, what a wonderful idea! I love the artkive idea. My kids are just 2 yrs and 6 months…but I feel the impending pressure to keep their artwork, however it stresses me to have the clutter. This idea mkaes me feel like a loving mom again! Thanks!!