When Elly was 17 months old, I started a scrapbook for her to corral all her artwork. Today, I finished filling it.
Elly is only 3 1/2 years old.
Even our living room wall boasts 4 paintings made by Elly.
Rather than throw out some of her paintings for she is a girl who will produce 10-20 pictures at a time, I even converted a few of her art pieces into cards.
Grammy and Poppy receive a package stuffed to the gills of artwork every few months.
Even still, I do have to throw out some of her artwork or it would literally take over the house. Did I mention that Elly is only 3 1/2 years old?
What scares me is that Elly hasn’t even started school yet. My understanding is that the amount of artwork she will come home with will blow the current supply out of the water.
So, what do you do with your children’s artwork?
Should I start a new scrapbook and try to not exceed 1 scrapbook per year? Should I do as Dan suggests, dump everything I can’t bear to part with in a cardboard storage box, label the year and hide them in the attic. Then, Elly can have the distinct honor of sorting through the mounds of paperwork when she becomes an adult. I dislike Dan’s idea only because it is against my nature to hoard. Of course, scrapbooks are different and cannot be categorized as hoarding – so I keep telling myself.
Should I throw more artwork in the trash? Should I find some more loving relatives/friends (read suckers) to whom I can offload all this artwork onto to?
Help!
The Life, Designs & Crafts of Marie Haigh 
My suggestion is to keep only a few things each year or you will need an entire room to keep all of her artwork. I know how difficult it is to throw them away, but she will bring home tons of art and papers from school. I kept only the ones that really showed them, not just a paper or thing they had to make. At 30 and almost 32, my children don’t seem to care about them, it’s me that can’t let go. I did keep some of the drawings, which were totally their work. That shows how they were able to draw at a certain age. The things I enjoy the most are samples of their writing, the stories they made up. They can be hilarious to read when they’re adults! Good luck and give her plenty of time to draw with crayons and use scissors. Children in kindergarten really struggle without fine motor skills. Play with play dough, ( She can help make some and you won’t have to keep everything you make, just reuse it. ).
I like your suggestion to only keep a handful of things each year. Maybe if I pile them up for a year and then go through them all with the idea to only keep a few, it will keep me in check from falling in love with everything! Thank you.
[…] you know, I have a problem just throwing Elly’s artwork out, but I can’t possibly keep the mountains of artwork she creates. Well, to be more precise, I have a hard time throwing out Elly’s paintings and […]