6 Quick and Simple Ways to Save Your Children's Artwork
If you have a child, you probably have a little artist on your hands. Whether they’re a prodigy or just big fans of finger painting, each and every one of their creations is a masterpiece to them—and probably to you, too! Sadly, you’ve only got so many magnets and so much fridge space. But it’s a little painful to throw away your child’s artwork and it often hurts their feelings, so what can you do?
Here are some DIY ideas for hanging on to every piece of art your child produces without overloading the front of your fridge:
DISPLAY IT
-Hang it: Grab some string, a few thumbtacks and a whole lot of clothes pins to make a simple, DIY display wall.
-Frame it: Make a gallery wall made up of all your children’s art with some cheap or thrifted photo frames.
Pros: Having their art on display can boost your child’s self esteem. They’ll be excited to look at their own “museum” and show visitors all the things they’ve created. It’s also a great way to personalize your decoration style.
Cons: With either method, you’re going to run out of wall space eventually. What’s more, displays are fairly limited to 2D creations.
STORE IT
-Make a portfolio: Invest in a few binders and lots of page protectors and make some albums! You can do your albums by child, year, project type or however else you want to organize your children’s masterpieces.
-Roll it up: Grab some mailing tubes and roll up each piece of art inside. You can again designate your tubes by child, year, or recipient—they’ll love adding new pieces of art to the “Grandma Tube,” and once it’s full you can ship it off! No one’s feelings get hurt when “getting rid of excess artwork” is disguised as “sending it to grandma.”
Pros: With these methods, you can keep almost everything. Portfolios are fun for the kids to look through, and mailing tubes are fun to prepare. Either way, you’re creating a time capsule of sorts, and the kids will love it.
Cons: Both binders and mailing tubes are often bulky and awkward to store. Mailing tubes can be hard to look through and it’s easy to forget what’s inside. Once again, these methods also are only conducive for flat art.
DIGITIZE IT
-Keep it on a hard drive: You can keep EVERYTHING by digitizing it and sorting it into folders on your computer.
-Make a book: Compile your digitized images into a book for print and keep it on the coffee table or in a bookshelf. The kids will adore having a book that they “made” and will spend hours pouring over each page.
Pros: By digitizing your kid’s crafts, you get to keep EVERYTHING and don’t need any space to do it.
Cons: Scanners can be expensive, bulky and slow. It often feels like more effort than it’s worth to scan, import, sort and figure out where to go from there.
To digitize anything, all you need is the SHOTBOX, a power outlet and a smart phone! This portable tabletop photography studio helps you take scanner-quality (or better) photos of your children’s masterpieces. The light box is self-contained and collapsible, making it easy to store and simple to set up. This process is fun for kids to help with and allows you to keep all the art you want without investing in a scanner or finding room to keep it! With an affordable price, various settings and tons of backdrops to choose from, the SHOTBOX beats out a scanner any day.
Shop the SHOTBOX on www.shotbox.me or Amazon Prime.