Creating your gallery: Archiving & displaying children's art
If you're successful in raising your kids' interest in arts & crafts, it won't be long before you're drowning in artwork. Unless you get organized.
Here are some ideas for storing and displaying your child's art projects, gathered from many sources including parenting articles and directly from experienced moms.
Displaying
-Have a rotating display in your play room or kitchen. Get one frame per child from somewhere inexpensive like Target, and display the "Artwork of the Month". Or you could get two frames per child, and keep one special work from when they were "little" (like their first fingerpainting) and rotate current work through the other. If you get a frame that has a little capacity you can actually store some of the paintings behind the one that is being displayed.
-Hang a bulletin board (one for each kid) in the hallway or playroom to display their best work for the month. When a new one goes up, another can come down.
--Fill a poster frame with a collage of all those paper plate faces and other cheerful but odd-shaped projects the kids bring home from school. (See photo above.)
-Hang a string clothes-line-style across a wall and get some colorful clothes pins to hold your children's artwork.
-If you have the space to really make your children's gallery a focal point, take a look at this idea for transforming a wall into an exhibit. Revolving exhibits; display wall enlivens child's arts & crafts (San Francisco Chronicle)
-Make a coffee table book from your children's artwork. This article from Disney family.com has instructions for making this project yourself.
Archiving
-Get a new pizza box from a local pizza place. Have the kids decorate it any way they like. Then, this can be their portfolio for the year to keep their favorite artwork. (A mom sent me this idea, but thought she read about it in a magazine, so please let me know if anyone knows the source for this one.)
-Get a large expanding file (15"x19" or so) and keep it in the child's closet or elsewhere. Keep paintings in order by date. Kids will love leafing through their "early" work as the years pass.
-Use a 3" binder with plastic sleeves (from an office supply shop.) Label each sleeve with the month and year. Put as much artwork (and writing, etc.) as you can fit in the sleeve for that month. Keep them in order and this binder will become like a porfolio of pre-school work (or use one binder for each grade as the kids get older).
-Under-bed boxes are a good size to hold larger papers as well as some dimensional work. You can keep this under the child's bed or in a closet, and label it by grade.
-No matter how you organize them, remember to date the work as soon as you can so you don't forget. Use permanent pen if you can so it doesn't fade.
-Yes, you will have to throw some of it out. Just don't let the kids see you doing it. And make sure you keep a good sampling of their work throughout the year so you can see how they develop.
There are some great products out there that might help you too. Check these out:
-Schoolfolio.com: These colorful cases with fun designs are great for storing larger sized artwork. Schoolfolio raises money for youth art programs through its Save the Art Foundation by promoting unique products that foster pride in art and schoolwork.
--Petite Picasso will create a beautiful hardcover book featuring your child's paintings.
Alex Toys has a kids' art portfolio and a wall-hanging gallery with display sleeves which are both pretty widely available in toy and craft catalogues.
-Land of Nod has a art clips on wire in fun designs.
-Here's one that you can't use too many times, but one that I just love...Doodle Tags from mommytags.com. You can have your child's drawing imprinted on a silver pendant so you can wear it every day!
Thanks to the MOMS Club of Media, PA for contributing many of these ideas and resources.