With some children heading back to school, you can expect the ‘creative output’ of children’s work to increase once again! When your little one goes to nursery, pre-school, or primary school, you can find yourself being inundated with ‘works of art’ on a weekly basis. If you are anything like us, you might struggle with how to store kids’ school work and decide what is worth keeping and what is. Well, there’s no easy way of saying this… not!
There are clearly some ‘must keep’ pieces of work such as hand and footprints. But those splodges of bright red paint on black paper perhaps not. And what about those manic scribbles with a dozen different crayons? Unless it’s signed by Damien Hirst, it might be better to slip them into the recycling when the little one in question isn’t looking!
How do you know what to keep?
As a rule of thumb, we suggest you use the following checklist when you decide what to keep and what to part ways with. The school work we suggest you save should tick at least one of the following criteria:
- Have a special meaning for you or your kids.
- Show their personality or growth.
- Make you smile and/or tugs at your heart when I see it.
Now you’ve decided what to keep, let’s move on to the next step.
How to store kids school work
We’re all about storage, so our team has done some research into what is the best way of keeping the good ones safe and sound. There are some very worthwhile options out there but they mostly involve giving up your day job and spending 10 hours a day curating the ‘kids works’. Honestly, who has the time?! So, we have distilled our findings into a top 5 and hope you find it useful!
Top 5 ways to store your child’s school work
5. Arch files!
Use a lever arch file – this one is for the stuff you are not too sure about but think you want to keep. We do urge you to be relatively ruthless otherwise this will fill up very quickly indeed! The box file is good for the slightly bulkier items (e.g. a ‘sun’ made from paper plates etc.!) and the file for those paintings or drawings done on A4 or below size paper. These two options are for the more standard pictures.
If you are wanting to store copies of actual work it would be a good idea to use dividers in the file and then put them into clear plastic document wallets so you can see what you are storing
4. Frame it!
This one is only for the exceptional items from the collection! However when framed nicely they can look good. Honestly! It’s possible to get frames delivered to your door quickly and easily by using dedicated online companies such as frames.co.uk. They have a wide range of options and some great prices.
3. Print it on an object
Personal gifts – you can get pictures put onto almost anything these days, but popular items include mugs, hot drink mats, items of clothing, caps, phone covers… the list goes on. As we have said there are many companies that offer this service. One that we have used personally is 4imprint.co.uk – they have a very large range and are quick to deliver and we have found them to be good value.
2. Have a photo book printed
Nearing the top of the list is a photo book of all the pieces of art which can also include captions e.g. Johnny’s ‘Blue Phase’ – Class: ‘Toddler 2’s’ – Aged 2 and 3/4… joking aside, a pretty good way of getting a lot of stuff into a small space which will keep forever – we like this one. And we like the way you can be really flexible with which pictures you show as a whole page or which ones make up a collage on another page. You can add or take away pages to suit your needs and it lands on your doorstep within a matter of days. Again, there are many choices out there on how to achieve this but we have found myphotobook.co.uk to be good value, quick to deliver and easy to use.
1. Get a 3D model of it
The coolest way to store your child’s inner Van Gogh is to get a 3D model made of one of their drawings. Whilst this may be quite ‘out there’ if there is a real gem of a piece your little one has created this is an eye-catching way of keeping it for posterity – we have not actually done this ourselves but we really liked the idea! One company we came across in our research is makeitquick.co.uk – they are UK based and seemed to have a simple process. Good luck!
Hopefully, our tips for how to store your child’s artwork were useful.
If all the artwork and homework gets too much, we are always here to help and can securely store your ‘pension plan’ of artwork from your budding Superstar Artist with us! For the special pieces you want to keep, consider using self storage in London to keep them safe and organised.
