Best Organizing Tips for Children's Artwork

Hello! Welcome to my blog where I will let you in on all of the best organizing tips for every area of your home! Organizing doesn't have to be hard. Attacking it just a little bit at a time is the best way to approach it. And, the dividends you will receive by having a neat and organized home (and life) will far outweigh the time you spent on these organizing tips. Ready - lets get started!

Today's topic - children's art work. When they were babies, could you ever imagine that your little bundle of joy would produce so many works of art? Even kids who aren't all that artistic seem to plow through reams of paper, producing one "masterpiece" after another. What's a parent to do? You want to honor the effort your child made, but exactly what do you do with all the results they produce? How do you organize it? Well, in my other life (my daily day to day existence), I am a children's art teacher. (Click on my other website to the right, Art Adventures Inc.,  if you want to know more.) So I speak from experience!

Sort and divide is the answer.

Here's are the easy organizing tips:

1. gather up all the artwork.
2. sort it out into piles - frameable, hangable and lovely to look at, but what do I do with it? (otherwise known as "I would trash it if I could".)
3. frameable pieces - get some inexpensive frames with plastic instead of glass in the front. Walmart & Target are good sources for this. I prefer black frames because it directs your attention to the artwork, but choose what you like. Put the pieces in the                  frames and hang them in your house or gift them away. I hand all my kids artwork on the walls going up the stairs. Makes a colorful display. And when they get knocked off the wall, like they will if you have kids, they don't break because of the plastic in the front, not glass.
4. hangable - LOVE THIS IDEA! - on an out of the way place,          steps to basement, mudroom, etc., trace the size of the paper most of your artwork is on directly onto the wall. Paint directly onto the wall a funky picture frame - wiggly edges, dots, bright colors, whatever strikes your fancy. Don't line them all up straight - tilt them this way and that. It adds to the whimsy of the display. Once dry, simply tape the "hangable" pieces up inside the painted frame space. Easy to do, fun to look at, and easily changeable when tired of the old. (You can recycle the old artwork when no one's looking and replace it with new. I guarantee no one with notice the old one is gone - AS LONG AS YOU REPLACE IT IMMEDIATELY WITH SOMETHING ELSE. Above are some examples of what I mean. The two shades of blue are the frame painted on the wall, the green is the actual art work.
5. lovely to look at pieces - give them a new lease on life by proclaiming them gift wrap! This works especially well for childless relatives. Another chance to ooh and aah over your child.
6. some organizing tips say you should store all your child's artwork in portfolios. I disagree. What good is the artwork if it's left in a dark, hidden place for years? Instead, take photographs of your favorite artwork and store the photo in a dedicated album. This way the piece gets to live out in the sunshine, and you have a memory of it locked safely away. The album can be a real hold in your hand album or one on your computer. Your choice. Don't do this with every piece - probably only those deemed "framable".

And remember - frameable pieces don't have to live at your house. They are a gift trove waiting to be gifted to relatives. Share the wealth!

There you go - you've conquered the piles of artwork, decorated your home, and knocked some items off your gift list - all at the same time. You deserve to be proud or yourself!

 be organized!.....evelyn