Oh man, do I have some GEMS for you today! I spent a lot of time sharing ideas on how to cultivate a creative space in your home the last few years. My goal has always been to inspire you to honor your children’s creativity (while keeping the creative clutter to a minimum)! I think the “mess” associated with making (both during and after) serves as a pretty big roadblock for a lot of moms hoping to make more with their littles. I have recently adjusted the way I store my daughter’s artwork and I think it’s a system that can help others, too! There is definitely a bit of legwork upfront, but totally worth it in the end. Scroll on down and see what inspires you today.
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Where to create art
Two of my favorite spaces to encourage Emme to make art in are her sketchbook and her easel! These are two places she has created in since she was sooo tiny, so don’t think it is too early to start! Sketchbooks are the BEST because they keep all of your children’s artwork neat and tidy and are easy to tear out of when you DO want to display something. The 60 page 9×12” sketchbook displayed in the video below was about $10. A pad of kiddie paper can be $4-6 and falls apart when you use anything but markers or crayons on it. Imagine having all of those loose papers in a bound book that you can pull from to display, store whole, or easily photograph and then toss later if you really don’t like holding onto material things.
The other space she makes at regularly is her easel! Emme was born in Japan where we had some pretty tight living quarters. Getting her an easel was pretty much out of the question. I had one unused wall at the entrance of the kitchen, so I decided to make my own paper roll easel for her using some good ole-fashioned IKEA supplies! In our Delaware home we used her giant window in the playroom as an easel using these shelves. (Her playroom didn’t have a wall for an easel). Now, we have a big enough basement that she has an actual standing easel I got from Facebook Marketplace, but I do have to say, it takes up a lot of real estate.
As she is now 5, she has a desk in her room where she is constantly making. I say this really just to tell you that all of the mess, the supervising art materials, the cleaning, it all pays off. My kid will sit at her desk ALL DAY and make things if I give her the supplies to. If you need ideas for age-appropriate supplies for yours, check my Walmart Storefront here.
Organize your children’s artwork: Displaying work
I truly think displaying photos of your family and artwork made by your children expresses a sense of belonging and value to them. One of my favorite ways to display artwork is these artwork frames from Amazon. I have them in the light wood and I think they are awesome! They actually store a ton of artwork too which is super convenient. Another poplar brand if you prefer a black frame are the Da Vinci ones here. Other ways I have displayed work in the past include this DIY display rail, but you can also buy pre-made ones or use a wire with clips! I also let Emme tape her work up if she wants too, which is often a fun surprise. One week we had dozens of “peacocks” taped all over our house and it seemed like more kept appearing everyday (eventually she lost interest and we stored them).
Organize your children’s artwork: Physical Storage
This is where the sketchbooks come in real handy. If you are able to convince your child to do a majority of their work in a sketchbook and ot tar the images out, you can simply label these by the date and then store them in tubs (I have some of my own childhood sketchbooks stored this way)! I suggest these filing tubs, so that you can also grab file folders and label years for any loose artwork you may want to keep!
BUT if your child is like ming and is at an age where they are making prolifically, get some copy paper, for real. Post-its, copy paper, you name it. Keep the sketchbooks but know they may want to tear every page out. Now I go through the stacks of paper on her desk (seriously, her desk looks like a mad scientist’s lair) and either put it in the frames for display or store it in the frame until I can photograph it, then when it is documented it gets moved to the filing tub. If keeping all of this artwork makes you groan, the next step will make you very happy.
Organize your children’s artwork: Digital Storage
Okay this is my new revelation that has for some reason literally made me feel lighter. I don’t know about you but when I get really overwhelmed emotionally (looking at you, election season), organizing things makes me feel better. I guess because it gives me a little control over my world. ANYWAYS, I spent my scroll time for a few days setting up a folder on my phone’s native photos app for each of my children. I titled them simply, “Emme’s Artwork” for example.
Then I went through my camera roll and added any kind of documentation related to Emme’s artmaking into her folder. This included any little video clips of her working, or any photos I already took on my phone. (We are a military family so I often document things Emme creates to send to family members.) Then, I pulled out ALL of the physical artwork that I had been shoving into those storage/display frames and a memento bin in her closet. I made a pile on my dining room table, attempting to sort them in a somewhat chronological order if I could remember. My daughter just turned 5 so luckily it’s only a few years to think back on.
In any tiny pockets of free time when the kids were eating over the course of the next few days, I grabbed a handful of pieces and quickly photographed them. YES I KNOW HOW BONKERS THAT SOUNDS. But when I think back to when I taught elementary art and I had 300-600 works of art to photograph and file into student portfolios at the end of literally every week, managing my one kids work doesn’t seem so bad. (My other kiddo is only one as I write this post, haha!).
Okay so next I open the image, click edit, crop it, and increase the exposure and other settings until it looks right. You can ALSO edit the “info” on the image and adjust the date! So I adjusted dates to as close as I could remember. Hopefully you are not as lazy as me and occasionally write down the date on the back of your kiddos works every now and again because apparently I only did this a solid two times so there was a LOT of guessing dates things were made. It’s fine, at least I have a photo of them, right?
Then it is as simple as hitting the share button and adding the image to your album! Now, you get to decide if you are keeping the physical artwork, or “recycling it.” 😬
How to organize your children’s artwork, next steps
Now you have a huge folder on your phone of all of your child’s hard and beautiful work. You can make gifts like keychains and prints and books for family members. I know this is a great idea because when I taught art, parents used to order these exact things from the works my students made that I photographed. We used a program called Artsonia which is actually also an option for you as a parent! I like the simplicity of having an album on my phone and knowing my iCloud is going to back it up for me. If you want to share the album with others, I recommend making a duplicate “shared album.” That way you keep the original and no one can accidentally delete anything from it.
Art projects to try
If you are noticing a lack of artwork on your camera roll and your home, I get it. There is a real intimidation factor with art-making. Sometimes it’s nice for someone to show you exactly what to do! Here is a list of super easy projects to try if you need some inspiration.