Recently, assessing Princess for her main learning style only confirmed what all the years of ceaseless drawings have been telling me: She likes to draw.
Well, okay the assessment said a little more than that, but that was the main thing that stood out to me as I read through the results and looked at the drawings scattered around our house.
I’ve long wondered what to do with all the drawings. They can’t all fit on the fridge. Shucks, in one day she can make more than what will fit on the freezer door. I’ve added a “gallery” in the school area with some fishing line and thumbtacks along the top of the wall. But even this is insufficient.
I confess I secretly throw most of them away when she’s not looking. Otherwise we’d be overcome with papers! Seriously, her drawing habits alone are enough to justify a switch to recycling.
I present my evidence to the court: (click to enlarge)
So what’s a girl to do?
Finally I got an idea. I’m going to make her a portfolio with a 3 ring binder and some cheap sheet protectors. She’ll get to decide whether she wants to put a drawing in there or throw it away (or recycle it once I get that system in place.) And when it gets full.. well, we’ll see how long it takes for that to happen. Either we’ll create a new one or she’ll have to switch to a one-in-one-out rule. Until then, we’ll finally have a home for drawings!
One more, check out her portrait of Big Daddy:
(He was on the phone, a grimace was the best I got.) 🙂
So tell me.. what do you do with your children’s drawings?
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My daughter is the very same way. We painted a huge dry erase wall on one of our laundry room walls to combat the insane amount of paper she uses.
http://frommynoodle.blogspot.com/2008/03/laundry-room.html
It has been awesome! And on the plus side, we also use it for homeschooling and pictionary tournaments.
For when she does still want to draw on paper, we have a similar approach. We use the binder for the most special drawings. The rest are scanned into the computer and then thrown away. She can see them again if she wants, but they don’t take up physical space.
I think that is a fab idea! I, like you, throw most away, and keep the best. Many go on the fridge, some go into the “special picture frames” in my bedroom. And the ones we keep go into a file in the filing cabinet. But I really like your binder idea…this should have been a WFMW post ! 😉
Impressive!! I have a friend who frames some of her kids artwork and hangs them in the bathroom and other places. She gets nice frames from Ross and Pottery Barn has some especially designed for kids art. She also changes out the pix every so often
I’d like to hang some of them too. I’ll try to do that more often in our new house.
Usually I hang some on the door and then switch them out every so often. A lot get recycled too. We just can’t keep everything. I’m not a big keeper of things anyway.
Actually, I’ve been wanting to try something I read on BooMama’s blog, where we buy canvasses and paint our own art for our home (instead of buying it). You involve everyone, even friends and family so that you have a little bit of everyone hanging on your walls. I’ll probably let Princess and Drama Queen each paint one if we ever get to do that. Then I’ll have some of their art – permanently.
Hmmm, looking at her drawing of Big Daddy: I hadn’t noticed his chin was so big. 😀
LOL!!
Well I have a scrapbooking business, so my first thought is to scrap some! I’d cut out specific shapes in some of her pictures to decorate a page, use some whole pictures as background paper, cut small squares out of several drawings to “mosaic” on a page, and scan and print smaller some too! But that’s me:-). I’d make sure to keep a favorite around and not swap it out, or as she gains talent you’ll loose her “early period” ! hee hee