mamahall: saving kid's art

my kids love to color beautiful pictures for us. they are budding artists, creating masterpieces with crayons and colored pencils on clean pages of white paper. i cherish their artwork. i love getting to see their perspectives and interpretations through scribbles. BigGirl pays a lot of attention to detail in her drawings, making sure it’s most realistic. Bubba’s art is more abstract; he uses big strokes of many colors to express his big thoughts and many ideas.

when they bring me their completed artwork, i beam and thank them, i give them compliments and kisses. i always make them sign their name and write the date on the back, and into the “finished” workbox it goes. that box gets full fast. i honestly can not save every single piece of my kids’ artwork. and yet, i honestly can not bring myself to get rid of it, either.

i have come across some great ideas for moms like me to store and preserve kids’ colorings. just do a search on Pinterest for "kids art" and look at all the ideas!

this is neat, from OhDeeDoh, thumbnail photos of kids' art on one big collage:

and this is another version of that same idea, from A Thousand Words:

these are also from OhDeeDoh, and i could have a million of these around my house:

i also like the idea of recycling their art into gifts, like these bookmarks:

and these coasters from Meet the Dubiens:

But when BigGirl presented to me this beautiful work of art, a “Get Well Mommy” bouquet of heart-shaped flowers, I immediately thought it would make a pretty background wallpaper for my iPhone.