Letting Go of Kids' Crafts

Let me preface this by saying that I am not the most sentimental person.  So, if you find value in holding onto things for the memories, this may not be the post for you.  Or maybe you can modify it to your needs.

Crafts.  Your kid comes home from preschool/daycare/Sunday school with a piece of artwork or craft that they created.  It's adorable, so you keep it.  Next week, same story.  Pretty soon, you have every single piece of paper they've ever even scribbled on.   If you're anything like me, eventually these pieces of paper become just that.  Pieces of paper cluttering up my home.  (Mom of the year right here.)

What got me started on my simplifying journey was the overwhelmed feeling I got when I would look at the kids' playroom.  So I did something about it and significantly reduced the amount of toys, books, and "stuff".   Let me tell you what, if you have kids, I highly urge you to give it a go.  The weight that has been lifted is incredible.  They can take out every single toy in that room, and it can now be cleaned in 5 minutes.  And it's not bare either.  And they play!  (Anyway, I'll save that for another post...)

Initial purge.  Part of the playroom simplification included getting rid of all of the piles of crafts and artwork we had sitting around - on kitchen counters, in the playroom, on our desk in the study.  So we piled it all up, looked through it to see if there was anything we really wanted to save.  If yes, we either kept it or  took a photo of it, then recycled the rest.

I felt like it was important that I explained what I was doing to my 4 year old.  I did not want her to think that we didn't care about her creations.  She seemed to get it.  One thing that helped was explaining to her that most of the time,  the most important thing is the doing of the craft, not necessarily the end product.  That it's about the experience and having fun.

Don't let it accumulate.  When you start to notice pieces of paper gathering, it's time to decide what needs to be recycled.  As I mentioned previously, we had been working on this for the past year, but loosely.  What ended up happening is that we would have a huge stack of art that needed to be scanned or photographed, and eventually we would just say, forget it, and dump it all without even looking at it.   By staying on top if it, we are being more discerning about what we keep and what we don't.

Another tactic we use is having an in/out rule.  We have a set up of kids' art.  When they bring home something new, it takes the place of something already hanging up.  Every week, our kids bring home a lesson from Bible study.  Each week we replace the previous lesson.

Be discerning.  Don't get me wrong, not everything gets recycled.  If it is something generic, out it goes.  But we like to keep things that capture a significant moment in time.    So something that has a cutout or tracing of my child's hand?  That goes to their memory box or gets photographed.

Our plan is not to purge every single thing that our children spend their time creating, because I think that misses the point of what we are trying to accomplish.  We have to be mindful of what has value, and not just what we think.  If my daughter brings in a picture that she is so proud of, it has value to her.  I want to teach my children to help make decisions about what stays or goes.

How do you manage arts and crafts that come into your home?  I'd love to hear any tricks or things that work for your family.  Leave a comment to share!

Kelly