What to do with kids "art"

[ButterPie]

DD1 is 3yo and makes huge amounts of paintings, models, drawings, collages and so on. What on earth do I do with them when she has done them? I can't keep them all, or my house will be covered in blobs that are meant to be trees or spaceships made out of plastic bottles or whatever. Once DD2 can wield a crayon, things will only get worse.

Any ideas?

Either box them and put them in the attic or pin them to her wall. Perhaps if they are of A4 Size put them in a poly pocket folder. If there is too much even for this save a few and take photos of the rest and bin/recycle.

If there are many your DD may not even notice some gone.

ours go on the fridge for a week or so, then the good/non brown ones go in the loft marked with name and date, the est are, discreetly, recycled!!

She does about 10-15 paintings a week (at least), some A4 sized, some off her paper roll. I don't want to, you know, curb her creativity, but tbh, it is rare you can tell what it is.

I've got 3 extremely prolific artists. I have just emptied an enormous cupboard that was filled with their crap works of art. I saved some of the best stuff and recycled the rest. Never thought I could do it but feels great!

use it for christmas wrapping paper. or any presents if you have so many of them.

You could laminate the really good ones, because school art paper tends to age and tear really fast.

Are you interested in doing some very simple embroidery? It might sound a bit Bunty, but I came across a nice idea (nice if you're into handwork, framed embroidery or random small cushions, that is) to immortalise one of your children's drawings - trace the outline onto cloth and use a simple stitch to outline it, then make it into a cushion or something to hang on the wall - it's in Amanda Blake Soule's book.

Actually, writing that out makes it sound unbelievably twee and completely barking mad! I liked the idea when I read it...

tbh, it is mainly blobs in a kind of browny grey colour...she is very proud of them though, I don't want to give her the impression I don't care.

Wrapping paper, or make into birthday cards for fond rellies.

Or when you've finished displaying, you could hand-bind into a little notebook for your handbag? Half the pages will be blank for notes. Or use for shopping lists?

Save the best pieces, laminate them and use them as place mats. Could also give them to gps etc as pressies

We have ours up all over the kitchen cupboards and they get changes regulary, the best kept and the rest go in the recycling

Make a really big thing about "using" a few examples as bookmark, framed picture etc and the rest can be boxed away as a treasure box (my teenage daughter recently found her old treasure box in the cellar and I was glad I kept it as it made us both laugh and I sort of though she was happy I'd kept it) My 3 dc have all been proud I have always had a few special examples on show too!