How to preserve, digitize, and bring new life to your kids’ artwork

How to save your kids’ art

The challenge of introducing your kids to art is that they’re incredibly prolific. Their early crayon scribbles will be displayed with pride on the fridge and regularly swapped out until you have piles and piles of art created at home, at school, and at friends’ houses. Figuring out what to do with all this art can be somewhat stressful. You don’t want to hurt your kids’ feelings by simply throwing some pieces away, but you can’t save all of them because you’re running out of storage space. These pieces of organization advice may help.

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Physical kids’ artwork storage

Unless your child is very into sculpture, most of their art will be flat and on paper, which makes storage solutions a little more straightforward, simply because there are lots of options, and paper doesn’t take up as much space as a diorama. (Don’t worry; we’ll get to those.)

• Portfolios
  Art portfolios come in a range of sizes and colors for storing artwork. An accordion-style folder allows for it to be opened wide but still close flat. Some can snap or tie closed which will keep papers from falling out if it’s not held upright. They can be as large as a piece of posterboard or perfectly sized for an 8.5”x11” piece of paper.
• Lidded plastic bins
  For keeping artwork safe and dry, it’s hard to beat stackable plastic bins. They come in a wide range of sizes and depths and are generally uniform so they can be easily stacked and take up less space. Some of them are even perfectly sized to fit under a bed, which means that your child can store all the art they want to save in their own rooms. Label these bins so you know what time period the art is from, which child produced the art, and if anything particularly special (or breakable) is inside.
• Archival art boxes
  For long-term storage of paper-based artwork, these acid-free art boxes are the ideal choice. They also are more aesthetically pleasing than a plastic folder or bin and might even be kept in plain sight as part of a room’s décor.
• Filing system
  Whether you opt for a tabbed accordion-style folder or a bin that allows for hanging files, this system is great for organization, but it requires that all the art be relatively flat.

Digitizing the art

If the idea of a bunch of plastic bins full of paper makes you feel a little claustrophobic, you might be more on board with saving your kids’ art digitally. One of your options for doing this is by scanning and photographing the art itself. Then, you can save the files to an external drive or some form of cloud storage.

Your Microsoft 365 account starts with 5 GB of cloud storage in Microsoft OneDrive, which allows you to keep your child’s artwork safely stored online, freeing up space in your house. What’s more, you can access it from anywhere, so when your little one wants to relive their art class glory days, they’re only a few clicks away.

Another digital option is to start an online gallery for your kids’ art. There are numerous apps that serve this exact purpose. Not only do they allow your kids to keep everything, but parents can use these apps to digitize and organize mementos and awards from their child’s lives and share them with family.

Bringing new life to your kids’ art

One creative way for parents to showcase their children’s art is by creating a physical book of it. If you’ve already gone through the trouble of digitizing the art and uploading those files, selecting a handful to turn into a printed book will absolutely delight your child. They make great gifts for grandparents, too. There are a range of services that can get this done for you, but your local print shop might be able to help as well.

Another idea, especially for younger kids who aren’t as attached to their crayon scribbles, is to repurpose some of the physical art (after you’ve digitized it, of course) for other uses. Let your little ones create collages out of older works by using safety scissors and glue sticks.

Every piece of art your child creates may have sentimental value to you as a parent. And your initial inclination may be to keep all of it, but this isn’t always feasible. Figure out an art storage plan that works for you so that when your little one holds their first gallery show, you can look back on the early days and say you saw it coming.