5 Tips to Save and Sort Children’s Paper Mementos

Guest Post by Tom Walker

If you are a parent, then you realize that every time your child picks up a package of crayons and a piece of paper, they are creating a priceless masterpiece. What could look like a page of scribbles to anyone else is a work of art to you. After years of collecting these treasured mementos, the question many parents find themselves asking is this: Where do we put them? This article will give you five tips on how to safely store and sort through your children’s works of art so that you can enjoy the most special forever.

1. Store The Best

If you try to keep every scrap of paper that your child ever took a marker to, you will soon be over-run. You should sort through the piles of art work regularly, choosing the best to keep, and discarding creations that are less-personal. All art-work should be carefully labeled with your child’s name, age, and the date that it was created. If asked, children are often happy to sign and date their work—saving you the time and hassle. Plastic storage totes are great for storing this home-made art and can easily be concealed in a closet or under a bed. If you have more than one child, consider buying smaller, individual storage totes so that you can keep their handiwork separate.

2. Weed Through Them – Often

If your child comes home with a pile of color pages, don’t feel that they all have to go on the fridge. Instead, sort through and find the best, while disposing of those that seem sloppy or half-done. Rather than let your child know that you are throwing away their work, comment on the exceptionally good pictures and sneak the others into the trash when they aren’t looking.

3. Recycle

Are you completely over-run by drawings? If so, sort through and pick out some of your least favorites. With a little work, children can be easily convinced that recycling the rejected drawings would be the best idea. Rather than say that the drawing wasn’t good, tell your children that it was so special that you would like to use it to wrap a present. By using unwanted artwork in this way, you will be able to rid your house of added clutter while providing yourself with cute, colorful wrapping paper that is completely free.

4. Take A Picture!

In a house of children, it’s easy for papers to become torn, lost, or destroyed. To save yourself from the disaster of a prized picture being annihilated, take a picture of your child holding their work of art. No matter what happens to the original, children can keep the photo and enjoy showing it off to family and friends. Having photos of artwork can often help parents decide which of the originals they should actually keep and which ones can head out to the recycling bin. Keep copies of all photos on a disk that you can easily insert into the computer when your children want to see their creations; consider calling it something like your “digital gallery”.

5. Show Them Off

Children love to see that their careful work is appreciated, so take the time to pick out the best of their designs and display them on the fridge or another special area of the house. Consider which art is actually worthy of being displayed based on the time and effort spent on it. Showing off artwork proves to children that you appreciate what they have done and that you are proud of their talents.

By taking the time to actually consider what artwork is worthy of being kept, appeasing children with your “digital gallery”, and recycling, storing artwork just became a much easier task!

Tom Walker analyses ink cartridges all day every day and has become an internet researcher of Dell ink, among other things.