How to Organize Kids' Artwork: A Simple System for Keeping What Matters

Children are wonderfully prolific. A preschooler can produce several drawings before breakfast. School sends home a folder every Friday. Holidays bring crafts with glitter that will outlive us all. If you keep everything, you'll run out of space. If you throw things away, you'll feel terrible.

You don't have to choose between a cluttered house and guilt. Here's a simple, sustainable system: keep, scan, display, let go.

Step 1: Set up an inbox

All new art goes to one place: a tray, a basket or a big folder near the door. Not the counter, not the fridge, not the floor of the car.

The inbox buys you time. You don't have to decide anything in the moment, especially in front of the artist.

Step 2: Display the new favorites

A rotating display lets each drawing have its moment.

Display ideas

• Fridge, the classic first gallery
• A clipboard wall: a row of clipboards where drawings can be swapped in seconds
• Wire and clips: a string across a wall with clothespins
• Frames that open from the front, designed for swapping art
• A corkboard in the kitchen or the child's room

When a new drawing goes up, an older one comes down and goes back to the inbox (or straight to the sorting step).

Our film The Fridge Museum imagines the fridge as a real museum, with grandpa as the guard.

Step 3: Sort regularly

Once a month, or once a term, empty the inbox and sort. It takes fifteen minutes.

What to keep

Most families find a handful of categories worth saving:

• Firsts: first scribble, first person, first written name
• Portraits of family members, especially with the child's explanation
• Drawings that tell a story or capture a moment
• Pieces that show a stage: a typical drawing from each age
• Anything that makes you laugh or cry

What to let go

• Worksheets and coloring pages
• Repeated drawings of the same thing (keep the best one)
• Crafts that are falling apart
• Things neither you nor your child feel strongly about

Include your child (sometimes)

Older kids can help choose. You may be surprised: they often care less than you do, and are happy to keep "the best ones." For younger children, sorting while they're busy elsewhere is kinder for everyone.

Step 4: Photograph or scan

Before anything leaves the house, photograph it. A digital archive costs nothing and takes no space.

Tips

• Photograph in daylight, flat, from directly above
• Include the child's name and date in the file name or album
• Use a scanning app that corrects perspective
• Create one album per child per school year

You can also photograph your child holding a drawing. Those photos become a record of both the art and the artist.

For more detail on photographing art well, see our guide to photographing a child's drawing.

Step 5: Store the keepers properly

One portfolio per child per year

An artist's portfolio, a large envelope or an under-bed art box. Label it with the child's name and school year.

Label everything

On the back of each drawing: name, age, date, and what the child said about it. This is the step that turns a drawing into a memory. In twenty years, "Mommy with six arms because she does everything" will mean far more than an unlabeled picture.

Archive-friendly storage

Paper lasts longest flat, dry and away from light. Avoid attics and damp basements. Acid-free folders and boxes help preserve paper for the long term.

Keep it curated

A good target is a single portfolio or box per child per year, so that by eighteen, each child has a manageable collection.

Step 6: Let go without guilt

Here's the hard truth: a child who draws daily from age three to thirteen will make thousands of drawings. Our film 3,650 Drawings does the math. No family can keep them all, and they don't need to.

Some ways to make it easier:

• Recycle the photographed originals. The image is saved.
• Send some to relatives. Grandparents often love receiving drawings by mail.
• Use some as wrapping paper or cards.
• Do it quietly, so it doesn't feel like rejection to the child.

Our film Every Parent Has This Box is about this dilemma, and Help Me Declutter the Kids' Room is a funny take on being "ruthless" and then saving one drawing anyway.

Step 7: Make a few drawings into something lasting

Every year, a few drawings stand out. Those deserve more than a box:

• A yearly art book, printed from your scans
• A framed favorite for each year
• A gift for grandparents, made from a drawing of them
• Something to wear: we embroider children's drawings on hoodies and T-shirts at ANORA, as drawn

For more options, see gifts made from kids' artwork. If you'd like to try embroidery, you can upload a drawing here and preview it first.

A sample yearly routine

• Weekly: new art goes to the inbox; favorites go on display
• Monthly: sort the inbox; photograph; keep or let go
• End of school year: review the year's portfolio; choose the best for a book or frame
• Holidays: choose one or two drawings to turn into gifts

Frequently asked questions

How do you store kids' artwork?

Keep a curated selection flat in a labeled portfolio or archive box per child per year, in a dry place away from light. Photograph or scan everything you keep and much of what you don't.

How do I decide which kids' drawings to keep?

Keep firsts, family portraits, drawings with stories, one typical drawing from each stage, and anything that moves you. Let go of worksheets, duplicates and pieces nobody feels strongly about.

Is it bad to throw away kids' artwork?

No. Children make far more art than any home can store. Photographing it first and letting go quietly is a healthy approach.

What is the best way to display children's art?

A rotating display, such as clipboards, a wire with clips, a corkboard or easy-open frames, lets new art be celebrated while older pieces move into storage.