Raise your hand if your child has ever found some of their artwork in the trash. [Raising my hang high up the sky!] After the first few months Worth started day school, I realized that I had a serious problem on my hand. The artwork was piling in and he was proud of every single piece. I don’t care how big your home is, it’s not possibly big enough to hold every craft and every project your kid brings home. After doing a quick Google search, I found that organizing your kid’s artwork is an issue for many, many moms. Today I am sharing my thoughts on How to Organize Your Kid’s Artwork. After reading this post, you will understand the steps to take to store, organize, and photograph your kid’s artwork.
To make this as easy as possible, I made you a free guide. Download it, print it out, and get to organizing. Grab it here!
Check out this video to see exactly how I make my kid’s artwork album here.
I came up with a plan. At the time of this writing, my son isn’t in Kindergarten yet. However, he does go to a day school 5 days a week and is SUPER proud of everything
he’s ever made (including the stuff I once threw away.) So, I came up with a plan and a system that has made organize artwork much less of a hassle. Without further ado, let’s jump in!
Step 1
Find a place in your home dedicated to storing these items. This can be a box on the top shelf of your closet, a shelf that you never see, or you can store the pieces a drawer. Worth has an empty small wooden chest in his room that was holding nothing. It became the “art bin.” The key is to have a place that out of the way, not being used, and easy to just throw stuff in. If you have multiple children, I advise having this separated somehow for each kid.
Step 2
**DATE EACH ITEM AS THEY COME IN! ** I promise you will thank me later.
Step 3
When your kid comes home with artwork, display it for a bit (or not) and then throw it in the art bin and forget out it. Seriously, don’t even look when you put in there. This is a task you might be doing 5 days a week. Let’s make sure it takes us less than 30 seconds to do. We’ll do the real work later.
Step 4
At the end of the year, take everything out of the box and photograph each item with your phone.
Photographing artwork tips:
- Good lighting is key. I recommend photography the artwork by a window when the light isn’t shining directly through the window. If you have a north-facing room with lots of windows, that will be the best because no direct sunlight will ever shine directly into the room.
- To make the album look more consistent and the artwork “pops.” I use a white table cloth I have for holidays and parties and simply place it on the floor.
Step 5
After you’ve taken all the photos, short the artwork into 2 piles: keep and throw away. Your keep pile should be WAY smaller than the throw-away pile. I keep most things with Worth’s handprint on it as well as anything that makes me really smile or laugh… like those little questions they ask about their mom and dad, those are definitely keepers. However, we ruthless here. Don’t forget that you will have a photo of all the artwork in an album. Only keep a handful of SUPER favorites. Throw away everything that is in the trash pile.
Step 6
Edit the photos on your phone. Don’t worry- it’s SUPER easy and I have a step-by-step guide on how to do this here and I include a free preset.
The number one problem with cellphone photos is that they are too dark. This can be easily corrected and since you (have your child) have spent all this time on this artwork, it’s worth taking a few minutes to make the photos look their best.
Step 7
Now that you have taken the photos, thrown away at least 95% of the artwork, and edited the photos… it’s now time to make your album. I use Chatbooks because I can create and customize an album from my phone. No need to have to transfer any photos and I can do this while in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. Download the ChatBook app and follow the instructions. It’s so user-friendly to create and you can place your order and pay directly from the app.
There ya have it: How to Organize Kid’s Artwork in 7 easy steps. You can now quickly and easily organize all that artwork they proudly bring home without the stress. Ok, mama, it’s time to get photographing!
I’ve made it really, really easy for you- download this free guide to help you while you are organizing and photographing the art! Click here!
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