Inside this post I share simple and do-able ways to manage kid's art! Having a good storage system for kids art can help you feel more organized and less overwhelmed with paper clutter!
- How do you store children's artwork? Here are 7 simple kids art storage ideas.
- How do you display art?
- How do you decide what art to keep?
- De-cluttering Kids Art Tips
- Kids Art Storage Ideas
- Storage Bins
- Memory Books
- Art Storage Portfolio
- Art Portfolio Binder
- Kids Art Storage Frame
- Make Art Books
- Digital Storage
- More Kid Art Storage Ideas
How do you store children's artwork? Here are 7 simple kids art storage ideas.
- Storage bins
- Memory books
- Art storage portfolio
- Art portfolio binder
- Photo books
- Kids art storage frame
- Digital storage
- Art books
Inside this post we'll go through all of these art storage ideas and I'll share a few details about them. I'll also share some tips about de-cluttering and deciding what art to keep. I hope these ideas help you feel more in control of the paper clutter at your house.
How do you display art?
There are so many easy ways to display art. In our house we keep it super simple. We use some push pins, twine, and clothespins. If you want to get fancy, you could use nails.
This simple art display spot is the first step in de-cluttering art in our home. There are around 15 clothespins on the art wall. Once the art wall is full, no more art can go up on it until some art is removed.
Kids may add a new piece of art up if they want to remove one.
Each month/season, we remove all the art from the art wall and decide what art we want to keep and what art can be recycled, photographed, etc. Keep reading for more details on how we decide what art to keep.
How do you decide what art to keep?
When it's time to sort through art and de-clutter a bit, I get started by making five piles.
- Keepsake art (Self-portraits, handprint art, first day of school, first story, items I might frame or put in a book)
- Art my child really wants to keep
- Art projects to photograph
- Art projects to recycle
- Art projects/pieces to trash (can't be recycled due to types of materials)
Some people add a 6th pile for gifting. I've never gifted art since my kid's grandparents and friends aren't paper collectors and have enough of their own art clutter.
De-cluttering Kids Art Tips
- Choose how much space you want kid's art to take up and then create boundaries around that space. Once that space is full, you'll need to remove some art in order to add more.
- Pick the most important pieces to keep and say goodbye to the others.
- If you can't make a decision on a piece of artwork now, keep it and then re-look at it in a month. Time makes it easier to say goodbye.
- Younger toddlers and preschoolers may want to keep all their art. Give them a number of art pieces that they can keep to make it a more concrete decision. If they can't make that decision, you can make it for them.
If every piece of kid art is important, then no art is really important. Pick the most important pieces and let go of the others. You can always take a photo.
Kids Art Storage Ideas
Here are 7 simple and do-able kids art storage ideas to try! If you have other strategies that have worked for you, I'd love to hear about them. Please share in the comments.
Every family has a different amount of space that they can realistically use for art storage. Every family also has different tolerances for the amount of paper storage they want to have at their house.
Hopefully one of these ideas, or others that people share, will be helpful for you!
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Storage Bins
Storage bins are the easiest way to store art for our family. Each kid has a large plastic bin with their name on it. When they bring special items home from school they display them for awhile and then either decide if they get recycled or get kept in the special bin. Each year we go through the storage bins and take out a few items that we no longer feel we need. Each of my older kids have used these bins from toddlers through the end of elementary school. At the end of elementary school, they go through them to reminisce and purge anything they don't want any more. I like the 66 Quart Sterilite Clear View bins.
Memory Books
Memory books are simple keepsake books we create using large pieces of construction paper and artwork/writing. Artwork is mounted onto the construction paper with rubber cement and glue and then the papers are bound together with special comb binding or coil binding. My kids love looking through these books as they grow! Sometimes office supply and teacher supply stores have binding tools that you can pay to use.
You can read more here about different types of book binding you can do at home and materials that you'll need.
Art Storage Portfolio
This waterproof clear plastic portfolio is great for bringing art back and forth from school to home. It's also a simple item to tuck under a bed or inside a closet.
Art Portfolio Binder
Art portfolio binders are an easy way to slip pieces of artwork into a book that kids can look through regularly without the cost of expensive binding. The books have plastic sleeves so that the artwork is protected. This only works with specific sizes of artwork that is under 9x12 or 11x17 depending on the size of binder you get. I love to use these for artwork, writing, and more.
Kids Art Storage Frame
These are a fun way to store AND display art because you can hide around 100 pieces of art in the frame and then just swap out the featured piece of art. These frames are limited because you have specific sizes of art that work the best inside them (typically 8.5 x 11 pieces of art).
Make Art Books
These are so simple! Scan or photograph your child's art and send it to a company so that they can create a book for you! At ArtKive you can send your art to them and they'll do all the scanning. I prefer to keep my art at my house and just take photos of the art and upload them to Chatbooks to make a photo art book. The art pieces are compact in whatever size book I pick and they can bring back a lot of memories as we look through them!
Digital Storage
My favorite way to store artwork is in Google Photos. I snap a photo of my child holding the piece of artwork or I just lay the piece of artwork down on the ground and snap a quick photo of it. This documents the cute creation and doesn't take up space at my house. This is especially good for art pieces that are too large to keep or that were more of a process focused art experience where kids were making a lot of one type of art and there are just too many art pieces to keep.
More Kid Art Storage Ideas
Hopefully these kids art storage ideas have given you some things to think about! After reading through them all I'd love to hear which ideas seems to fit your family! Tell me in the comments. If you have additional ideas, don't hesitate to share.
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