How to Preserve Kids’ Artwork (Without Keeping Everything)

This post may contain affiliate links and CorporetteMoms may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

When you have school-age kids, it’s hard to keep worksheets, event flyers, and other random school papers from piling up — not to mention all your kids’ that comes home. It’s never too early to start thinking about how to preserve kids’ artwork, because once you’ve got several years’ worth, especially from multiple children, it can get overwhelming.

What are your best tips for sorting through and preserving your kids’ artwork, readers?

Over the last few years, I’ve become much pickier about what save I from my son’s younger years. You only need so many feathers-glued-to-construction-paper masterpieces, after all. For now, I store the more “special” art and various craft creations in a chest of drawers in the living room (random, yes) plus a couple of plastic bins in the basement, along with some schoolwork. (We have a dehumidifier, so I’m not worried about the paper.) I’m considering making an art book or two and then tossing the featured items.

{related: how to use your iPhone to store school paperwork}

How to Preserve Kids’ Artwork

Artkive

Artkive make photo books and framed mosaics from your kids’ art. You fill a box with art, the company photographs them and edits the photos, and then you’ll review the digital proof. Each crush-proof Artkive box holds 300 to 400 (!) pieces of art (you can include things from more than one kid) and includes prepaid shipping.

Two book sizes are available (8″ x 8″ and 11″ x 8.5″), while the books’ capacity ranges from 25 to 200 images, and you can add a custom cover and image captions. Prices start at $75 for a 25-page hardcover book, and the products ship free. If you’d like your kid’s art returned, that’s an extra $20, and other add-ons are available.

The process is similar for framed mosaics, which feature 25 images, measure 26″ x 26″, and start at $259. Artkive also makes photo books of greeting cards (displaying both the outside and inside), and I love this idea! It’d be perfect for wedding cards or new-baby cards.

Plum Print

Plum Print is another company that makes photo books of kids’ artwork. Unlike Artkive, the company requires a $49.99 deposit to send you a kit for shipping your kids’ art (and a prepaid label), but just like Artkive, once they receive the pieces (up to 350), they photograph them and design a photo book. If you want the art back, you’ll pay $19.99.

A 13″ x 11″ hardcover book includes 20 pieces (additional pieces of art are $2.85/each) and costs $210; a 10″ x 8″ hardcover also includes a minimum of 20 pieces ($2.60 for each additional) and is $175. They also have a basic “express” option with a simpler design.

Custom captions are $1/each, and if you want to buy a second book (or more), you’ll get 50% off each. (These would make great gifts for grandparents!) Plum Print’s website has a page with a handy slider tool that shows what you’ll pay, according to number of images and book size.

The company also makes books for greeting cards, recipes, and more. In a sports book, for example, you can include photos of things like trophies, medals, and T-shirts.

Keepy

The Keepy app provides an alternative to typical social media — and is free of the privacy issues that come with it — by helping you organize and privately share your kids’ photos, art, and schoolwork. (By the way, we’re due for an update on our post on free apps for privately sharing photos, so please let us know in the comments if you have any recs!)

Keepy provides an online gallery and chronological timeline of your uploaded items, and it saves images to the cloud (plus, you can sync to Dropbox). You can include video and voice narration, and your family and friends can add video, voice, and text comments, both via app and browser. You’re able to choose which things you share with your kid’s “fans,” as the app calls them. (If you like, you can also share to the Keepy Community.)

As of March 4, the Google Play link is broken, but Keepy is currently available for iOS with plan options ranging from $7.99 (Unlimited Monthly) to $99.99 (Unlimited for Life).

General Photo Printing Sites

I’ve used a ton of services over the years for printing photos, holiday cards, and photo gifts (calendars, etc.), including Snapfish, Shutterfly, Printique (Adorama), CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart. Most of them often have sales on photo books, especially at the holidays. If you use one of these services, you’ll have to photograph your kids’ art yourself, of course — but it’s a less expensive option.

I don’t have a particular preference for companies, but two photo products I gave as gifts for Christmas came out great: a canvas print from Snapfish and beach towels from the UK Snapfish. In online ratings of photo printing companies by the NYT and other websites, top picks for quality include Nations Photo Lab, Mpix, Printique, and Shutterfly — and all of them offer photo books.

I haven’t made a photo book yet, but in Kat’s posts about making them (for Corporette and CorporetteMoms), she’s recommended Shutterfly and Mixbook.

More Basic Options for Preserving Kids’ Artwork

1. Kat snaps photos of her kids’ artwork as it comes home, discards anything but the cutest stuff, and deals with them as part of her regular process for organizing family photos. That includes putting them into the digital photo albums she makes. She’s found that the colors and textures of the original artwork are preserved better via iPhone snapshots than when scanned with a printer.

2. Buy a frame for your wall like this one or this one (both at Amazon) — it lets you easily switch out your kids’ art. Pieces you’re not currently featuring can be stored behind the chosen picture. (We have one of these in our living room, and I like it, but have we changed the front art more than a few times? No, we have not.)

3. Try these preservation tips from the National Archives (after all, they’re the experts!) for safely storing family papers and photos. I recently bought an acid-free, sturdy box from Michaels like this one to store some non-kid memorabilia.

{related: 4 free apps for privately sharing photos}

Do tell, readers: Do you save everything (or almost everything) your kids create? How ruthless are you, for your home’s and sanity’s sake? Do you throw everything in a big box for now, sort it neatly by grade or age, or get rid of things as you go?

Stock photo via Stencil