Keeping & Storage of kids artwork/schoolwork

Hey everyone,

Just wondering if you keep your kids artwork or schoolwork? My mum kept all the good stuff that we did, and we each had a box for each year of school, kinder, prep, grade 1 etc.

My parents also have a bigger house, and if i start keeping a box for each year for each kid, i don't know where i will be putting it all (probably in my parents roof space sshhH!).
It was kinda cool having all that stuff to look back on, and maybe my kids or grandkids will appreciate it more that i will in 50 years time, but it's not like i look at it all that often. But then again, i love having some things from my great aunt who died in the holocaust, some school work etc that she had done.

For those who keep it, how do you decide what to keep, how do you divide it up, and how to you store it? I was thinking of buying some nice archive boxes to put it in.

I have an A4 display folder for each child, each year (I label the front in black marker with, for example, Johnny - Year 2) and put their paintings, drawings etc in there. Then I also have a separate one for certificates, class photos etc. Then I store them in those cardboard 'magazine holders' (fit around 5-7 folders into a holder). Works really well for us, and they love to flick through and look at everything. I store them up the top of my office cupboard, and they don't really take up that much room.....even with four kids' worth!

PS. When I refer to the display folder, I mean those cheapie ones you can pick up from Officeworks/Big W etc for around 75cents. They come in various colours, have clear plastic sleeves which can't be removed/replaced. And the cardboard magazine holders, you know the Marbig ones, come in a box of 10 for only a few dollars. It's quite an economical little system! :)

Just wanted to add......I remember now that I began using the Foolscap size instead of A4, as there were always things that didn't fit in A4. Also, you asked about how to decide what to keep? I collect the special ones and put them in there along the way, then toward the end of the year (when it's getting full) I tend to have a flip through and reassess what is worthy of keeping and what is not. It's then that I usually find I've got double-ups of certain things (such as when DD goes through a stage of ONLY drawing trees, or whatever!) and I cull a few things to bring it back to perfect size.

When my DD gets to that stage where she starts bringing home artwork, DF and I are going to get them scanned at the end of each year and get a photobook made that way they wont fade, get damaged, are all together, orginised and such.

I saw a good suggestion... can't remember where... that I intend to do; you take a photo of the artwork and when you have a years worth of photos (or any time frame, style, type or grouping you wish) then you make them into one of those photo books. Then you can just pop them all in a bookshelf and look through them again when you want. Sounded really good to me! Might keep a few hard copies of some favourite ones also.

Mum kept an art folio for all our kinder painting and larger artworks and a box for the others. I like the scanning/photo idea

As much as I LOVE the idea of having photos of the kids artwork made into a photobook etc (being the anti-clutter, organisation freak that I am, it really appeals to me) - I just worry that you would lose that extra 'specialness' that you would have with the original. I mean, with an original painting that your child has done, it's quite special to think they did it right there on that paper, with their own hands. (Does that make sense??) I dunno why I would think that, as I'm not normally much of a sentimental person. But that's just what comes to mind.

I would probably keep the really special ones, as a hard copy, but do what I mentioned above and scan the majority of it all.

My parents kept a few books that my brother and i wrote in at school, they were quite good to look through, gave me plenty of laughs. But they put them in the shed the one day and when Id gone in to get them they were ruined due to rats and mice using them for nesting :(