{five minute friday} Organizing & Storing Kids' Artwork

Both of my boys go to preschool two days a week, and they do an art project every day. We also do a lot of art projects at home, so all the creativity was starting to pile up.

Organize and store kids' art

I used to put all of the art in a basket in our entry way table, but I knew I needed a better long term solution.

I have fun long term plans for documenting our boys' art work in books so that we don't have to keep every individual piece of paper. I want to make one book for their toddler/preschool years art, one for their early elementary school years, etc. But since my older son is only three, we aren't quite ready to print the first book yet. In the meantime, I needed to find a way to keep the art safe and make it easy to store.

My solution was to repurpose some of my Iris Scrapbook Cases to art storage for the kids. These plastic containers are 14"x14" in dimension, making them large enough for even the over sized works of art. They snap closed tightly and made from an acid free, archival safe plastic, so the precious artwork inside will stay safe.

Organize and store kids' artwork

I like the cases are shallow, making it easy to sort the art into smaller categories.

Organize and Store Kids Art

And because the cases are stackable, they are easy to store on a shelf.

Organize and store kids art
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I used washi tape and a Sharpie to label the front of each case, making it easy to keep track of which masterpieces belong to which boy. Beckett's first case filled up quickly, so I opted to divide his art into two cases - one for his toddler years and one his pre-K years.

Organize and Store Kids' Art

Talk about an easy five minute project. But taking the time to sort our boys' art and transfer it to these plastic scrapbook cases will not only keep it protected, it will also save a lot of time when I am eventually ready to choose the pieces that will make the cut for printing in coffee table style books.

Organize & Store Kids' Art

As an added bonus, it was a lot of fun having an excuse to look back through all of this art work, and it makes me realize how quickly the boys grow and change.


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