How do you store all your DCs 'art' work...?!

[Saritabean]

I have a 3.5 yr old who is churning out sooo many bits of paper with drawings and artwork of varying quality and size. I want to be able to keep hard copies any of the good stuff for future (I will take photo of not such important ones to keep digitally) but not quite sure of the best way: scrap book/ folder or box. Any ideas gratefully received!

Erm. to be frank, there won't be much "good stuff" to keep, and this is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the -crap-- art your DS will be bringing home in the next five years.

Keep sentimental ones, maybe from his first day at nursery (normally you get a photo and hand prints) or his first ever heart drawing to you. that kind of thing.

Laminate them, and put them in a box.

Chuck the rest.

Or do as one MNer does, send them to GPs!

You will end up with waaay too much to keep it all. Consider doing as suggested by previous poster, save from important events... First day in classes, drawings from special trips etc.

For the rest... A friend of mine used to use her kids artwork as wrapping paper and greeting card toppers for relatives presents throughout the year.

We have started taking photos of/scanning anything 'good'. We also keep the odd original if it means something to us or DS.

A selection of decent ones get put on the wall. The rest get binned unsentimental bitch

I have twins - and my DTD can get through 15 sheets of a4 in half an hour before lunch - plus nursery - plus our old nanny comes now and again and does crafts - so no way I'm keeping everything!

I have just got both my dds an expanding File each. They put all artwork, stories, random bits of paper they want to keep in there. When they are full I plan to go through them with them and decide what we want to keep and what we want to chuck. They are both prolific 'artists' and I was sick of them leaving bits of 'art' everywhere, this had helped them take ownership of their stuff and I've told them anything not in the boxes when they go to bed will be chucked in the bin. It's working so far and they are even deciding sometimes to chuck stuff rather than give it storage space.

I take a photo and put it on instagram. And a few go on the wall. That way I don't have lots cluttering up the house

I put the art and school work in files in plastic folder sheets. Admittedly I don't save all of it and I still have about 5 carrier bags to file (they are 8 and 11), but that's the principle. I can't bring myself to bin much, but then again, I still have several of my own English assignments from primary and secondary school (it makes sense because I studied literature at uni).

Do keep at least some, you and them will love looking at it in future.

I got a huge art folder
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I keep (some of) them and send them as "thank you letters" after birthdays & Christmas. Works great while he's too young to write letters

Ours go in A2 folders from Argos. Dses 1 and 2 are now teenagers so their days as prolific artists are now gone but ds3 still churns artwork out at a rate of knots. They are good to look at now and again, especially the stuff they did in Nursery and Reception .