s/o, What to do with school crafts?

[momof2girls]

Where do you store your DC's school crafts? I'm talking about the kind that don't necessarily lay flat and are usually made of paper and are easily ripped/broken if not handled gingerly. I feel bad tossing them, but my kids are only in preschool and K, and I can't even imagine how much more stuff is bound to accumulate as they continue with school.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Display them till you are ready to move on then take a picture of it. You can make a photo book of their projects for the year or get a picture blown up and hang that...or do what I do and take the pictures and that's it. ;)

Beth

[momof2girls]

great idea!

[kijip]

Keep the cute crafts for a bit (we put 1 on the mantle and may a couple more in his room on shelves) and then toss/cycle out as others come up to replace them. If it is really something you want to remember, snap a picture of your kid holding it and then throw it out. I do not have the space or inclination to keep 10 years of crafts around. If it is a little sturdier and holiday themed (examples: a wall hanging made with a stick, thin canvas and leaf prints in fall/thanksgiving colors and an advent calendar made with wire ribbons and cutout doors) I save it with the holiday decorations in the garage and pull it out then.

[SnuggleBuggles]

If it is a little sturdier and holiday themed (examples: a wall hanging made with a stick, thin canvas and leaf prints in fall/thanksgiving colors and an advent calendar made with wire ribbons and cutout doors) I save it with the holiday decorations in the garage and pull it out then.

I do this too.

Beth

[jayali]

DH is 1 of 5 children. When each of them got married (we were the last) my mil gave each, as a shower present, framed art projects for each of the major holidays from their childhood. We got Christmas (a paperbag reindeer and a paper plate Santa in 1 frame), Easter (a cottonball bunny thing and an egg with tissue paper in 1 frame), Thanksgiving (a pilgrim hat framed by itself and a pumpkin thing framed by itself) and a Valentine frame with some hearts in it. Each piece has the year he made them and the teacher. I love each one of them and someone always comments about them. Here is the funny part. After my shower we went back to mil's house and she was explaining the tradition to my family when my husband told her that he never made any of those things, that he was so bad in art the art teacher (a nun) used to make one of his friends do his project for him. My mil was horrified. So I have really cute framed artwork from some of DH lifelong friends.
I plan on doing the same with some of Matthew's things. I think this years valentine will be a keeper!
We have a treasure box under his bed for PreK that is almost full and we will need to go through it at some point, but for right now we save them. Once he is in K and beyond we will save every 2 years and then whittle them down.

[gatorsmom]

If you have a printer with a scanner in it, you could scan the artwork. Then, when and if you ever want to print it again, you can print it the size you like for a frame or baby book, etc.

[KrisM]

I pile it on the floor in the dining room. Another pile in our bedroom. When the piles get too big, I put them in a laundry basket with the intent of sorting through them. I now have 2 laundry baskets of them :).

I have some favorites that go up on the doors of the kitchen cupboards. They are dated on the back. I'll save those somehow.

DS1 is not much of an artist. He does projects at school, but doesn't have a big interest in them. We still get a lot of scribble drawings. And, in his school, they have a journal and a notebook with letters and pictures, so I'll keep that for sure.

DD, on the other hand, loves the art stuff. She's already doing pictures with a purpose - yellow sun, pink house, green grass. I have a lot harder time getting rid of those. Good thing she's only in school once a week :).

We give them as birthday gifts too. My mom has a painting from each grandkid framed in her kitchen. We send them to their college-aged cousins, on request.

I toss a lot of them. I take pictures of some of them.

[maestramommy]

We've only had the flat ones so far, but we hang them up on a clothesline strung across our family room window. Then when it gets to full and we get tired of looking at them, we'll take pics and save them, toss the projects. I read this idea a while ago (maybe here!) and thought it was a good one.

[KrisM]

Does anyone have a display for them in the family room? We have a big blank wall I could use. It'd solve my clutter and decorating problem at the same time.

I saw the Oprah with Peter Walsh and they put carpet tiles on the wall. I was thinking of this, or maybe just molding to make 3 large frames, or painted corkboard, or...

[DrSally]

Does anyone have a display for them in the family room? We have a big blank wall I could use. It'd solve my clutter and decorating problem at the same time.

I saw the Oprah with Peter Walsh and they put carpet tiles on the wall. I was thinking of this, or maybe just molding to make 3 large frames, or painted corkboard, or...

I saw that too, from a link on here. It looked so nice and I thought I would do it in the playroom downstairs, but I ddin't get up the ambition to do it. I also didn't want tacks on the squares in case they fell down on the floor.