what to do with preschool art?

Does anyone do anything cute and fun with the art their preschoolers (or older kids) bring home?
Some of it is bigger than 12 x 12 so I'm not sure a traditional scrapbook would work very well, but I'd love to keep most of it in one place year by year.
I don't know if I should get a laminator and laminate it all and just get some O-rings right through each piece to bind it, or if there is a larger type of scrapbook that I could use, or something altogether different.
Thanks for your help!
Jenny

Could you scan and resize? My husband makes each child a file in his file cabinet. The kids loved it then and now that they are adults they think its special he still has it.

I definitely recommend scanning or taking photos of the projects instead of trying to save all of the actual art itself. My kids are now going into 4th and 2nd grade and OMGosh, I would have totes and totes of their stuff, LOL!

Also, a lot of it degrades pretty quickly because it is on construction paper or is made with cheap adhesive.

You can take pictures/scan and do pages about their art

I take pics/scan my daughters art, then I keep it flat in a box under her bed. I may purge it now and then and just keep the KEEPERS, but I'm a purger...LOL I don't like to keep loads of stuff in my house.

I have also cut up some of my daughters art and actually used it as embellishments on pages, here is an example I just put up today, I have others, I will take photos in the next few days:

Wonderful Wizard of Art By Penny Lane

my mom kept some of my stuff, I too have a file somewhere at their house.

I plan to take pictures, and purge at the end of each school year, keeping a select few.

you can also frame a few pieces for their room/living room, ect.


(family I babysat did this).

I did some, but have a lot left to do, of each school year's papers for each of my two girls. I do a representative sample so it fits into one book for each year. I use the papers themselves. No scanning for me, but I know it makes sense for others.

• johnsusan8 Said:

I would definitely do just a sample of my favorites, can you imagine all of it?!
So when you use the papers themselves, how do you bind them? I think the scanning idea is a good one that never occurred to me, but I was definitely thinking more of just using some of his actual art, but can't figure out how to bind them all. Some, actually many of them are probably bigger than 12 x 12. Do you find that to be true as well?

I do the same thing, keep just a sample and take pics of the other projects. the ones I keep are in a box thats about 11x18x3 I've found it hold just a nice amount of things and a lot of the more odd sized projects. I plan on one of these boxes per year. There are some about that size at Walmart for about $6...But you could probably find them here or at an office supply store fairly easily...

becky higgins keeps hinting at an album she is putting out this fall for these kind of school projects. im probably going to scan or photograph it and keep it that way.... again with the "its made out of cheap materials" and probably wont last otherswise ... but i like the bin idea and just perge it at the end of the year ... let them pick out what they want me to keep/scan and put in their books.

I used to put all of Chase's artwork on the fridge, and once a month get a few pictures of the fridge and some with Chase standing in front of the artwork. These photos then get laid out, and the ones Chase decides aren't archival worthy go away. The others go in an under the bed rolling Rubbermaid container.

Nancy

My mom kept several of my things, but honestly by the time I was 25, most of it was so degraded and faded that I couldn't really tell what it had once looked like. Even with my own kids, stuff they did 7 or 8 years ago is really faded. And the stuff that isn't flat takes up way too much room!

I saw the COOLEST thing for this,,,,,

it was a milk type crate (the person weaved ribbon through the holes about 1/3 of the way down and tied in a bow in the front),,,,,,

then she had hanging files, one for each year,,,,,

on the front of the file there was the school pic for that year, a sample of handwriting,,,,,,

and inside a sampling of their artwork, school papers, report cards, etc etc etc,,,,,

it was ADORABLE.

At the end of each grade, I have each kid pick out a few things for us to keep. By second grade, it's more the book he wrote than his art projects.

I hang some of their art in my scrap room.

I've scanned some and done layouts about it. That's better for drawings than "sculture". Interesting to see how their drawing skills improve.

If it is to big to fit in a scrapbook I take a picture of my child holding it and then use the picture in the book. Some of them are small enough that I can use it in an ABC album. Like the little handprint bunnies my daughter made a few years back. I try to take pictures of all of the ones that I hold dear just incase they don't make it past the refrigerator. They hang there for a while and I have had some lose their color or they get taken down to show grandma. A friend of mine frames her daughter's art and hangs it in the playroom.

I sometimes use their paintings for background paper, or rip up a bunch of their paintings and glue them onto a piece of cs to make a layered/torn up background paper.

I don't keep much of their art because the prechool makes them a scrapbook that includes a lot of their art. Their scrapbooks include photos of them making art, and then samples of the art from the photos, as well as passages from the books they read. It's broken down into social, art, science, and language learning. I was surprised and impressed by this, and it allowed me to throw their art away, guilt-free, knowing the teachers are holding back a good sample of their work. plus it's really nice to see what they're up to. Their parent-teacher nights focus a lot on sharing thier scrapbooks and talking about what they did that half of the year.

I do love incorproating their art into my own scrapbooks, and liek the previous ideas of making embellies out of them. So far I've just made backgrounds, but maybe I'll branch out a bit. Thanks for the ideas!

I have a friend who did a page that incorporated her daughters art almost as patterned paper:

Create Art By Mommaprov

Penny Lane, I LOVE that layout! TFS!

As a mother of two mid-twenties people, I agree with one of the above posts. School art is done with the cheapest supplies and does not hold up to time. Take a picture.

My last question, and then I swear I'll listen to all you wise people, but if I laminate it, will it still not hold up? Or if I picked just a few to laminate, would they hold up inside the lamination?
I really want to at least pick a few and keep them if I can. Definitely not all of them, but the great ones, I really want to save the actual art. The pieces of art that my sweet little son actual made with his tiny little hands. Pictures just won't be the same for me. So, is there any way to save some of them?
Anybody know?

I taught kindergarten before I became a mom and used to collect one art project and one writing sample every month. Then we glued them into a book. The books were make of 12 X 18 construction paper with a plastic binder on the side. The kids did a Sept. self portrait and a handprint in Sept and then did both again in June for the front cover. We gave the books to the parents at kinder graduation and they were always a huge hit! The moms loved that everything was in order through the year and in one neat place so they could "purge" the rest!

In 2007 when my oldest started kindergarten I did the same thing for him. His preschool did a letter a week so I made the book 26 pages long. He wrote the letters (capital and lower case) at the top and then I glued the things they made into the book. A few things were too big so I did take pictures and then added the picture to the page. He starts first grade in the fall and we will continue the tradition with my youngest who starts preschool in the fall.

My son loves his 3 books we have now and I feel it motivates him at school to do his best work because it goes in the "special" book!

I'm sure you will find something that works for you!

tshasta
mommy to ds 1-28-04
dd 1-24-07