Every parent's dilemma. What to keep and what to toss? Clearly the prolific little painter doesn't need to keep ALL of his or her paintings. Which are important to keep, where do you put them, how do you display them? Right now I have a stack of arts and crafts I'm trying to go through. This is what I've come up with in my research to remedy this problem.
The first thing you have to do is SORT it! Just keep a few of the things that represent your child at the moment, or showcase the stage of development. I'm sure your kids can help you decide which to keep and which to toss. Then, write down the artists name, when it was created, how it was created, etc. on the back.
So where or how do you SAVE this stuff? Here are some great ideas I'm hoping to incorporate.
* scan them or take pictures and save them on the computer, less clutter!
* create a rotating display gallery
* use shadowbox frames to display special art
* create a book
* buy a pretty box to put them in after they've been displayed
* go rubermaid
Once you've done this, how do you DISPLAY it all? I've seen some pretty creative display ideas on other people's blogs lately. One was particularly impressive and I am really sad I can't find where it was. Let me lamely describe it to you. This mother probably used photoshop to put somewhere around 16 pieces of art together. there were white borders around each and there were a few that were just solid color. This was then framed. Very cute. It was similar to this, but with artwork and just one large frame, obviously. I think it was much cuter.
A display idea that I really like is this one at Land of Nod. My 30 cent version includes some string, 3 picture hooks and some clothes pins.

With a little time and creativity I'm sure you could make one just as cute as the store bought versions, probably cuter. Here are some ideas to get you started (not me though, mine are staying plain jane).
Some other great display ideas I've seen but didn't bookmark include buying some large pegboard from Home Depot and then clipping artwork to that. I've also seen magnetic boards used for rotating current artwork. Cork boards work fine as well.
Another one of my favorites was this one. I've scanned a few of Naomi's pieces of art into PDF documents so far but not nearly enough to make a book. This would be cool to make after 4 or 5 years of artwork. I don't need a book for every year.
GIVE the artwork as a gift. This is a shirt Naomi drew for my dad's birthday.

All you need are fabric crayons, blank paper and an iron! If the original artwork wasn't done with fabric crayons you could always trace it onto another piece of paper with the fabric crayons.
You can also;
* use the art as wrapping paper
* scan the art and put it to music on a CD for family viewing pleasure
* frame the art in a nice frame for a gift
* make a greeting card out of them
* use the scanned images to create a calendar for the grandparents (or yourself)
I'm planning to make photo albums for each of my girls at some point in the future to chronicle their early lives. Much like a scrapbook or a baby book, but I don't scrapbook. Scanning in some of their artwork and other memorabilia would go very well in this type of project. If you've never made a book or a photo book, I highly recommend Blurb.
What do you do with all the artwork and crafts at your house? I know some of you make A LOT of crafts with your kids. Do you save it? I'm always looking for great ideas!