Saving Children's Artwork

What is more precious then your children's artwork? They bring it home for you to admire, and admire you do. I've had many clients that have decision making problems and one problematic area is what to do with all of their children's artwork. What to keep, what to toss? Well, that decision is a pretty personal and difficult thing for some parents.

There has been many a time I suggest that my clients choose a number that they are comfortable with, and keep a certain amount of artwork per month. Let's say you like the number 5. You keep 5 items per month and at the end of the year, you and your children sit down and pick one or two from each month. If you have limited space, you limit the number of artwork keeps to suit your storage needs. Decide what will make the cut and what won't. Will you involve your child in the decision making or make the decisions yourself or on your own?

If you have a problem making a decision about what to keep, think about how helpful it will be if you limit what you choose to display and what you choose to archive. You'll be sending a message to your children that we make choices and don't keep everything. Not everything is worth keeping. When we make choices, we help ourselves and our children to understand that decision making is an important process. We also want to honor the artwork our children have created by making sure that these treasures are preserved and stored safely.

There are some really cute ways of displaying children's artwork. Pottery Barn kids has these cute butterfly clips that work as a way to display and string their artwork on a wall. (http://tinyurl.com/7k52a3h) Works of art can be rotated in and out with this idea. Another cute site is Land of Nod. They also offer these cute art clips in different styles. (http://tinyurl.com/3ucnd6o).

Improvements offers a "Dynamic Artwork Frame' that displays one work of art at a time, but holds 50 works of art. You'll always have a new masterpiece to look at with that frame. (http://www.dynamicframes.com)

One last important place for wonderful archive boxes is Container Store. They have them in all different sizes for your needs. Let's celebrate your budding Monet's with some creative displays and storage.