How did/do you decide?

[LadyP]

DS is almost 2yrs, 4mths and goes to nursery, where he draws and paints and comes homes with one or two of them.

In the beginning, it was fine as we pinned his first 3 or 4 on the fridge, freezer and any other spaces. Now, we have loads that are just lying around on shelves.

Feeling slightly guitly about throwing them away (so haven't),so was wondering what others did. Do you keep them all, only the 'good' ones or just the initial ones and discreetly throw away the rest?

BTW, I have already given many away to family members

Dd1 paints and draws, on average, about 12 pictures a day. I have to throw a lot away otherwise we would have had to move house by now! I have bought a large art folder from Great Little Trading where I keep the gems, the rest go in the bin I am afraid.

Threw away most of dd's early pictures, the only ones I kept are ones using hand prints or that you can realy see what she's tried to paint. Also have dated the backs of them and put what the picture is meant to be of.

Don't feel bad for throwing away pictures that you don't want to keep, there will be pleanty more.

I chuck them out. ds doesn't even notice. A few go on the fridge with a huge fanfare and loads of praise - the old ones go in the bin. MY mum gets first dibs on the excess, and then they too get chucked out. I am heartless, aren't I?

I am having the same problem. I keep thinking that if anything ever happened to ds I would regret throwing anything away. We have the most attractive ones on the wall, and three huge selfridges bags full of the others. Sometimes we look at them together, and ds remembers all kinds of things, eg which teacher helped him do a particular painting, or things we did during the summer, so I can't bear to throw any out. I am, however, very strict about telling ds that if they are lying around and not tidy in the three bags, then they will get thrown away. I also realised that the "bad" ones sometimes mean something to ds, eg what looked like boring lead pencil scribble to me was "writing" to him that he wanted to show me. I'm just keeping them all until we move house and then we'll see ...

save some, chuck the rest out. I've got a good 12 years of this ahead of me I think! She only attends nursery one day a work when i work and on average, produces 3 works of art during her stay. Can't imagine what the house would look like if she was full time there! I must buy an extra large folder to store the ones I do keep ...any ideas there?

I keep each one until i get another one brought home from nursery and throw the old one away. I did keep the first ever drawing and painting though. Don't feel guilty about throwing them out, the rate my dd1 produces works of art i'd have no room to move in my house!

I keep the ones that he looks like he had more involvemnet with and also the ones he is excted to show me - we have a room for the kiddies so they decorate that - but I do get rid of ones that are just non desript splodges or shed bits of glitters, lentils etc... they are a pain in the !

I keep the ones that he looks like he had more involvemnet with and also the ones he is excted to show me - we have a room for the kiddies so they decorate that - but I do get rid of ones that are just non desript splodges or shed bits of glitters, lentils etc... they are a pain in the !

I frame the really nice ones and put them on the wall like real art
The rest is thrown out......

DD is only 19mo but still brings loads of pictures and paintings home from nursery. I have one (usually) most recent up on the kitchen cupboard. Then in her bedroom we have a line up on the wall - from IKEA with tiny little ladybird pegs. This fits about 6-8 pictures on okay. I simply relace the end the oldest with the newest, and the one down is (erm) filed (i.e bin without Dd seeing)??? Her first couple I have saved in her memory box.

Thanks for the responses.

Have already thrown two away and was quite surprised how guilty I felt. However DS continued to play as if nothing had happened.

Ahh well, on with the rest of them

For children of this age they get all their enjoyment out of the creation and experimenting, and do not really understand why their creations are considered so emotionally by us soppy parents.

I make scrap books out of the best ones for both my dds. It stops them getting too ruined and thet love to look at them, makes them easy to store too.

I once saw a day care centre "fake" kids paintings on a day they were busy. I think that may temper my enthusiasm for hanging onto them all when the time comes.

Date & Tape things up on the wall and then discard the old stuff to make room for new, only keep a few choice items.

4yo DS is one of the world's most non-arty children. For years brought home perfect colourings/paintings/craft things that actually had no more than a single sticker's worth of input (if that much) from DS himself. 2yo DD is very arty by comparison, started painting at 12 months, sat and made 10 Xmas cards the other day. I keep a lot more of her stuff.

Message withdrawn

Oh bin them!

Lady I think a lot of people feel like this in the beginning with the childrens pictures. However, there will come a point when you will feel happy to go through and select a few you would like to keep and then bin the others, particularly when you have piles of them. Just make sure you do them when your children arent present..lol!

bobthebaby, that has reached a new height of cynicism that even I wouldn't have believd possible

When dd1 was at playgroup, I spent quite a bit of time on one of my helper days making calendars - the leader said "the mums want something decent for their money"...I didn't have the nerve to argue (she was a fierce woman!)

Car pooling at nursery school I would have been thrilled if any of them had come out with nothing! I used to have to negotiate 2 double doors with 3 pre-schoolers and a toddler plus mounds of gluey eggboxes, wet paintings, bits of pasta on cardboard.....

I now have 4 huge boxes of artwork which I will go through - one day - really I will.

Things usually get transferred from schoolbag to bin, although certain things i am keeping, like the loo roll angel she made last year (my gran still puts mine on her tree now!). I've also kept her first drawings of people, you know the ones that have a circle with eyes etc and then legs and so on, but are minus a body? DH and i have found this a much more meaningful leap than her first words/steps.

DD quite often puts her own artwork in the bin.

We have a crate that EVERYTHING goes in. Every month or so I go through it. 90% goes to recycling. Some is sent to grandparents and relatives. Some is kept (we have those art folders from GLTC too). We also mount the 'best' pieces, and put them up in clipframes on the wall, (and change them every year or so).

We have a wall for each of DS1 & DS2 in the Playroom. We sort & renew about every 6 months. There's nearly always a huge pile of masterpieces waiting to be sorted through in the corner.
Sometimes we cut up the shiny/colourful ones and make thank you cards/ gift cards etc.

We cut out a rectangle from the middle of the best ones and mount it onto folded cards and give as greetings cards. I can't remember the last time I bought anyone a card, they look great, quite abstract but great.

bin 99.9% of them,eventually 100% as time goes on.Will I regret this?