Where am I supposed to put all of this?

We are heading into the time of year when bags and bags full of children's work gets sent home and, as a parent, I know that it is impossible to keep it all. As much as we all want to. As proud of our kids as we are for their progress, it is just not feasible to end up with 13 years of saved school work (and that is not even accounting for preschool).

When my daughter was young, it was simple enough to choose 4 or 5 pieces of writing, math etc to put into her scrapbook ,which I must admit kind of stalled out at about grade 3 (she is now in grade 10) as scrapbooking is not my forte. As an artist myself, I was always most interested in her art work. So many wonderful images, such creativity, such growth. I have always felt that it is through a child's art that we really see who they are now and who they are becoming.

Over the years I have framed a few pieces like this one that she did in grade 2. It is a print made from a styrofoam plate carved with the design. She did it while attending the (then new) arts school for elementary students. I like the balance of it, the colour choices and her simple, yet effective, drawings. It makes me happy.

But, lets face it, there is not enough wall space in our house to accomodate all the fabulous things she has done over the years and still leave room for anything else (like the artwork we collect or my own pieces). And, while having it filed away neatly in a storage box, is one way to hold on to momentos it will not allow you to enjoy the creativity your child showed at each age. Plus, we run into the space issue again. We live in 750 square feet. Where to put her school stuff?

This morning I found this neat idea (on Pinterest of course!) and wanted to share it. There is an artist named Jan Eleni (images to the right from her website) who will take your child's artwork, scan it, shrink it, and then frame it (archival quality) in a fabulous grid. Very crisp. Very clean. And one frame can show a year or a number of years worth of work. Now why didn't I think of that? Sometimes it just takes one person to think outside the box (or, in this case, outside the size of the original artwork).

Seems to me that this idea could be achieved at home as a diy. I know that some of the pieces I have saved are too big for my scanner but I bet I could have them scanned and put on a flash drive for not too much money at somewhere like Kinko's. So, I am adding this idea to the 1,113 other decorating ideas I have on my decorating board on Pinterest. I kid you not. I have 1, 113 other ideas on that one board. On one board. I know that I will probably never see most of those ideas to fruition but, like dreaming about winning the lottery, it is fun to find cool ideas, pin them and think to myself "one day..."