If you have children in your home, then you should also have a huge amount of the results of their creativity. This means that sooner or later the question will become relevant: “What to do with all these masterpieces?”

The throw away option is not always suitable. Firstly, the author of the work may be offended. And secondly, not every parent has enough spirit, it’s still a pity. But I don’t want to clutter up my apartment either. Meanwhile, the problem is easily solved.

The first and simplest thing that comes to mind is organize an exhibition. And the exhibits change as they appear.

To do this, you can drive two nails into the wall and stretch a rope on which to hang the work using clothespins or paper clips. For example, we use a long wall in the corridor for these purposes.

This is how the issue of space design is resolved, and anyone who comes to visit will not pass by our creations.

Doesn't your apartment have a free and long enough wall? Use the door to the room - this is also a great place to organize an exhibition.

Well, what if simple solutions are not suitable for you, you can place a sheet of iron on the wall and attach the drawings using magnets. Magnets can also be used to attach drawings to the refrigerator.

Next step - preservation after the exhibition. First you need to sort all your creations. Children often do similar jobs. Choose the most successful ones from the series 1-2, and the rest, no, don’t throw them away, but put them aside.

Place the selected masterpieces for storage in a folder with files. In this case, nothing crumbles or smudges. After all, paintings are made not only with the help of paint, but also with cereals, plasticine, and dried plants. Don't forget to back side make a record: date of creation or age of the author; what is depicted (otherwise in a few years you may not understand whether it is a flower or a car :)). It is better to sign on the back side only if the child has not asked you to sign directly on the drawing. By making a signature on a drawing, you are interfering with the artist’s plan, and he may not like this.

What to do with the remaining pictures after sorting? Put them in a separate folder and use them as needed:

1. as a background for creating other works, for example, holiday cards;

2. instead of colored paper for creating applications;

3. Cut them out into gift tags and write the author's name on them.

All this is suitable for masterpieces created on paper: drawings, applications. A what to do with crafts?

Products made from plasticine or salt dough, we, most often, use as toys. During the games, something breaks, gets lost, in a word, there is a natural loss :).

And what you can't play with we try to give: grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, kindergarten teachers. Believe me, the latter are no less pleased to receive such gifts.

Well, especially valuable creations can be scanned or photographed. Then from this material making a photo album entitled “From kalya-malya to masterpieces.” We place there not only photos of the works, but also the author himself behind the creative process. Don't forget to write the story of the creation of the masterpiece. After a while, not only you, but also the child will be very interested in looking at such an album.

Another option is to make from this material presentation inPowerPoint and surprise relatives.

As you can see, the problem of storing children's masterpieces is easily solved.

Let your children delight you with their creativity more often, because you already know what to do with all this.

P.s. And we continue our small marathon on organizing children's creativity. As a second task, we suggest you answer the following questions:

— how do you organize the storage of your child(ren)’s creative works?

— Do you consider it necessary to organize exhibitions of children’s drawings and do you organize them?

Photos for answers are welcome! Tomorrow you will receive the third task, we will accept reports until July 26 inclusive, and on July 27 we will sum up the results. I wrote about the prizes at the end, and in it you will find links to all the marathon tasks.

The older the child gets, the more types of creativity he masters. Modeling, appliqué, drawing, burning, origami... And now the whole house is littered with crafts, and the child is carrying kindergarten or school another masterpiece and proudly hands it to his mother. How to preserve crafts so as not to discourage children from creating, and how to properly throw away a souvenir if there is practically no free space for them in the apartment - Letidor found answers to these questions together with psychoanalyst Henrietta Grafova.

Why is it important to store children's crafts?

Leaflets with drawings and scribbles scattered in all corners, a dusty craft made from plasticine, an applique with stains from a mug and glue should only please parents - it means your child is developing correctly. Of course, children's crafts, especially for kids, are far from perfect, but first of all it is work, and efforts should be appreciated. Therefore, young artists should see that their work is treated with care and respect.

Henrietta Grafova

psychologist, psychoanalyst

“When any child creates a drawing or craft, he expects approval and encouragement from his parents. If adults are dismissive of children’s creative activities, they may develop internal complexes - and, as a result, interest in the process will disappear completely. The reluctance to express oneself and reveal one’s talents is sometimes born out of resentment towards parents who were lazy or too busy to appreciate children’s crafts. Sometimes only parents can gently draw the young creator’s attention to what he does best and develop his strong side.”

To ensure that creativity brings only joy to your child, show him that you appreciate his diligence - collect and store children's works. This is important for both the child and the parents. There are a few simple ways preserve crafts beautifully and correctly, without littering the entire apartment.

Photo album of crafts

The most accessible and at the same time creative way to preserve ALL children's crafts is to photograph them. And then create a special album or order a photo book (for example, by year). In addition, you can arrange a fun photo session with your creations - at the same time, you will immortalize the author.

Some tips for creating a photo album:

• Involve your child in creativity: let him place photos in the album, sign them, draw in the empty spaces and make appliqués in the margins.
• The originals of your and your child’s favorite drawings can also be pasted into the album.
• If you are “friends” with a computer, collect an album or photo book in electronic form - there will always be a place for a flash drive. The presentation will also help to show your imagination. In this case, accompany the footage with music and comments from the child himself.
• Create a collage from the brightest and most unusual photographs. It doesn't take up much space and can be hung on the wall.
• Don’t forget about your child’s street creativity: a snowman, a drawing on the asphalt, a castle in the sandbox - all this can also be preserved as a keepsake using photographs.
• Give some photographs of your crafts to the studio so they can make you a magnet, mug or other souvenirs.

Creative archive

If you want to keep the originals of your children's masterpieces, then go to the stationery department for a folder with files. It will be an ideal archive for drawings and applications. One file - one craft. Easy to assemble and convenient to review.

Gallery at home

The young artist will be flattered if you arrange a real gallery of his creative works in your apartment. He and you will have something to brag about and something to show your family and guests.

• Stretch the ribbon from one wall to the other, like clotheslines. Use beautiful decorative clothespins to attach the most beautiful drawings and applications. After a week or two, the child can easily update the exposure himself.
• Attach successful pictures to the refrigerator using magnets.
• Frame your drawings like real paintings. To do this, you just need to insert them into frames and hang them on the walls - it looks very unusual and bold.
• For a home display, select your favorite crafts and display them on a separate table or shelf. But agree that only the most successful and beautiful crafts. This will consolidate the child's success and encourage him to pay more attention to quality rather than quantity.

Practical crafts

If your child makes something practical (cuts and burns a cutting board or paints dishes), try to use the craft around the house. And don’t be afraid that over time such a thing will become unusable: but the craftsman will see that his work is not collecting dust in a box or lying on the balcony, but is bringing real benefits.

Containers and boxes

It is more difficult to save crafts made from plasticine, salt dough and plastic, as well as other bulk items, since they take up more space. In this case you will be helped out carton boxes or other plastic containers.

Provide a separate container or box (for example, from Ikea) for your child’s voluminous masterpieces. If space allows, buy several boxes at once: separately for plasticine and clay figurines, separately for crafts made from pine cones, separately for embroidery and soft toys.

You can divide the containers not by type of creativity, but by year, but then you need to start a new box for each child’s birthday. The main thing is not to forget to check the contents with your child from time to time. How to preserve crafts made from plasticine and clay

Plasticine gifts are very short-lived: they wrinkle easily and quickly collect dust. Here are some tips to help extend the life of plasticine figures:

Cover the finished product clear varnish for nails. This will make the figurine more durable and protect it from dust. Then the craft can be wiped with a damp cloth.

Another option for “preserving” plasticine crafts is hairspray. It is enough to spray the surface of the toy and dry it.

Replace classic plasticine with vegetable clay. It is both safer and easier to work with. But its main advantage is that it dries within 24 hours. If you moisten it with water, the mass can be used again. In addition, there are other more durable materials for modeling: salty dough, clay, plastic (or polymer clay), wax.

“No, this is not a yellow spider at all, this is the sun. And here it’s not a koala with chickenpox, but a portrait of your beloved mother,” you tell someone about your child’s drawings.

But in every house where there are children, whole piles of such “masterpieces” are stored. And the hand will not rise to throw away these priceless little scribbles. Moreover, it will be so interesting to go through his old drawings with your grown-up child! What if your foolish child turns out to be a second Leonardo da Vinci? And then that yellow “sun spider” will be called “an original work from the early period of the great artist.”

What to do with a huge number of children's drawings?

But in order to store all these “masterpieces”, you need an apartment comparable in area almost to the Hermitage. So I suggest you figure out how you can store children's drawings , and what else useful can be done with them. In addition, this will be beneficial for the upbringing of the child himself, and will also give new life children's creations.

First steps to order: selection, analysis, marking

Step one.No matter how difficult it may be, you still have to select the best works. Two red curves in the center of the sheet ㅡ this is, of course, conceptual, but saving such works is not at all necessary.

Step two.Be sure to sign on the back side at what age the child created this or that drawing.

Step three.The easiest way to store it is to put the paintings in a folder with transparent files or put them in a box.

Exhibition of children's drawings at home

But at least some of the children’s creations must be exhibited. This will bring a lot of joy to the littlest creator and his loved ones. And below you will find some ideas on how to do this.

• You can organize a monthly vernissage, selecting the best works together with your child.

• You can organize thematic exhibitions if a little artist, for example, painted only dinosaurs all summer.

• It’s not bad if the child himself acts as a museum guide. He can demonstrate the exhibition to a visiting grandmother or even just to his dolls, presenting each painting. By the way, it may well turn out that the drawing that worries parents, clearly depicting the arrival of the apocalypse, is just an attempt to depict a dawn on the river.

Howarrange children's drawingsand create an exhibition at home

• The easiest way to arrange exhibition of children's drawings at home ㅡ stretch a thread or a beautiful braid along the wall and attach the work to clothespins.

• You can also use clipboards, magnets, etc. The range is now wide.

• Don’t forget that even the simplest frame can elevate an ordinary scrawl to the level of Kandinsky’s works.

• Sticker frames ㅡ new interesting way which will allow you to quickly and creatively arrange children's drawings . Just a few steps, and now - instead of a boring interior door, a branch of the Guggenheim Museum is already located in your home.

How else can you use children's drawings?

Children's drawings and their parts can be used to decorate postcards, scrapbooks (photo albums designed by hand) and even as original gift wrapping.

Some parents laminate the drawings they like and use them, for example, as coasters for plates.

Digitization of works

Another group of ways to preserve children's creations involves digitizing drawings. There are even more options here:

• just save the drawings on your computer;

• print out the best works in the form of a photo book and present it to an older child or loving grandmother and grandfather;

• enlarge the image and print a poster;

• reduce the image and make a series of miniatures united by a common theme, technique, color scheme etc. This collage will fit perfectly into the interior.

How to turn your child's work into an original gift

Now in any photo center they offer a huge number of options allowing you to make designer gifts with children's drawings . You can print the desired design on cups, watches, key rings, etc. You can also make puzzles, mouse pads and even chocolate sets in packaging according to your design. You can make a calendar for dad that he will put on his desk. Grandma will be delighted with a pillow with photo printing. And mom will definitely be delighted with the T-shirt with her portrait on it.

Here the possibilities are limited only by your wallet. For example, phone cases that come with a design of your choice are very popular. There are services that offer to make a passport cover with your design. Some even use motifs from children's drawings as the basis for airbrushing on cars. The digitized design can also be converted into an embroidery pattern.

Another popular one Now the way is to order a toy sewn according to your child’s drawing. However, it can not only be sewn, but also molded, for example, from polymer clay and use as a keychain or refrigerator magnet.

As you understand, you can be completely creative with your kids’ creations! You can arrange unusual exhibitions at your home and hold vernissages, you can add individuality to your interior, and also make cute and soulful gifts with children's drawings. I think the question is what to do with the huge amount of children's drawings , will no longer bother you. And in conclusion, an idea for the craziest parents: would you mind getting a tattoo based on the drawings of your little artist? :)

Natalia Chernova, teacher, journalist and passionate mother of three-year-old Marusya

Folders for drawings and drawings

Artist's folder or folder for drawings – this is the name of folders for storing paintings or drawings, which are used to transport large format images, first of all, for their safety, and secondly for convenience. These folders are made in the form of bags - they have a strap, thanks to which they can be hung on the shoulder, and additional pockets for storage.

Appearance and characteristics

Folders for artwork They have mostly discreet designs - black or gray. This is utilitarian, given that the bag can get dirty during transportation. However design of a folder for drawings It can also be brighter - made of fabric with multi-colored prints. These are also available in our store.

In addition, good folder for drawings and drawings always made of water-repellent fabric - this is also a guarantee that the work or drawing will remain safe, especially in harsh weather.

Folder formats for artwork and drawings

Depending on the potential size of the picture or drawing, folders come in the following formats:

A1 – has a size of 594x841 mm

A2 – has a size of 420x594 mm

A3 – has a size of 297x420 mm

A4 – has a size of 210×297

Folders for the artist in A3, A2 and A1 formats most popular. A4 is used less frequently, due to the fact that this format is easier to transport without the use of special bags, folders or cases.

Still don't know where to buy a folder for drawings and drawings ?

In our online store you can buy folders for storing drawings various formats: from A3 to A1.

One of my colleagues told me that she keeps a large piece of wallpaper torn from the wall after renovation. The children painted literally every centimeter: they “took new heights” by placing chairs and tables... Here it is - REAL, SINCERE, CHILDREN'S... Having an art education, with great pleasure doing personal creativity, working with children for many years, I, having just become a mother, I seriously thought: “What to do with children’s drawings, crafts, applications, of which there are a great many?” Is it worth keeping children's masterpieces? If yes, then for how long, where?

Family traditions

It just so happened in our family that drawings are stored selectively. I select the so-called spontaneous masterpieces (what the child did on his own, without any help from adults, without using samples, stencils, templates, at his own request and the way he wanted here and now), I sign the age of the Creator and put it in a folder.

I photograph voluminous applications or sculptures and store them in a separate folder on the computer. From time to time we look through these “museum exhibits”, and, what is most amazing, my son remembers in detail the history of creation and the plot of this or that work, even though it is quite difficult to “recognize” real objects or events in simple lines or color spots.

We give some of the baby’s masterpieces to grandmothers, godparents and those who like our creativity. Sometimes we go to the doctor at the children's clinic with a picture in our hands.

How to store children's drawings

Naturally, no folder can accommodate the overflowing fountain of children's creativity, so you need to sacrifice something, throw away some of the drawings or look for another use for them. Limiting yourself to photographs is also not an option, since a photograph does not always convey what you can see and feel when holding a child’s work in your hands. I’ll be happy to tell you how to store children’s drawings, because I’ve tried these methods in practice.

What to do if there are few albums?

Sometimes walls and albums are not enough for young artists. Give them big canvases so they have room to spread out! This is where colored crayons and asphalt paths near the house come to the rescue, and sometimes even grandma’s flower garden “falls into disarray.” The next rain - and the masterpieces will disappear, you need to hurry to preserve them in your memory. Naive cephalopods, the sun and company can make you smile even after several years.

Photo printing and other ways to use children's drawings

Another unusual way storing children's drawings - applying them to clothes, interior items, dishes. Very convenient and won’t get lost! This method is now very popular; craftswomen and designers have appeared who transfer children's drawings to sofa cushions, handbags, dresses, etc. If you don’t have the opportunity to do this yourself, you can turn to professionals and order photo printing.

Grandparents will be pleased to receive a wall or desk calendar, illustrated with the works of his grandson. You can do this yourself using certain computer programs, or you can scan or photograph your child’s drawings and crafts and take them to any photo service, where they will certainly help you make an interesting photo collage.

By the way, you can leave not only drawings as souvenirs, but also photos of the process of creating masterpieces. Anyone who is good at Photoshop can combine a photograph of a child and part of his drawing to make a photo book. It turns out very interesting.

Wallpaper for coloring

Recommendation for those whose kids draw on the walls. You don’t need to grab your heart every time you see a child with a pencil standing in front of expensive wallpaper in the corner... It’s easier to buy a roll of special wallpaper for this purpose with a pattern, like in a coloring book. By the way, the paper there is of very good quality; you can draw not only with felt-tip pens and pencils, but also with paints. Cover a wall within a child’s reach with this wallpaper and you will be guaranteed an original interior! Now, caring adults who are attentive to the interests of children can painlessly allow little artists to “dirty the walls”!

Magnetic exhibition on the refrigerator

Some works undergo strict selection and testing for “audience sympathy”. We periodically make a magnetic “exhibition” on the refrigerator, and after some time we ask the young artist whether it is worth changing the exhibition to something fresh. Should I send the “old” masterpiece to storage or throw it away? Or maybe it deserves to be framed?

Why not play with drawings?

Picture in frame

You can make a collage from several works. Cut out successful fragments and paste them on large leaf Whatman paper and fill in the missing details, fill in the voids, and apply decor. Such a masterpiece, framed, hangs in our nursery and pleases us and the Creator himself. It's nice to see the surprised faces of the guests and the child's pride in his drawing.

You don’t have to be a great child psychologist to notice that it is important for a child of any age to see that his work is not in vain, to feel that his parents value what he creates. The Right Attitude to children's creativity will help the child to believe in himself and open up. In a few years, your children will probably be interested in plunging into their “old” Child's world, remember their experiences, see how their perception of reality has changed. They will definitely pass on these good traditions to their children.

It’s up to you to decide which storage option for children’s work you prefer.

Dear readers! Do you keep drawings and other creative works your children? How exactly? Share your tips in the comments.