Creative Ways To Recycle Your Child's Artwork

Related Content

By Marie-Helen Goyetche

When I had my sons in daycare it seemed I had enough artwork to wallpaper my house at least twice. It was tempting at times to throw these works of art into the garbage. Seeing how much time, love and energy my children put into them made that option unacceptable. Out of desperation and love, I found some creative ways to recycle the overflow of artwork.

Collect drawings on a regular basis (every 3-6 months). Write down the name and the age of the child and a few words they use to describe each one. Paste them in a scrapbook. You'll be able to see the evolution in the drawings and details. You can also include pictures of your little artist(s) artwork.
Laminate drawings you especially like. These make great gifts ideas for relatives.
Use artwork as wrapping paper. Birthday, Christmas, any holiday can use beautifully hand-made wrapping paper.
Cut up drawing into strips and plastify them with contact paper to make bookmarks.
Use the whole drawing, plastify both sides with contact paper and use as placemats.
Use the other side as stationary when you write to relatives and friends. (Birthday party invitations too). Or cut up some pictures and paste them on to new hand made cards.
Use art to cover and protect hard cover and school books.
Periodically photograph some of the artwork, especially bigger or three-dimensional pieces that you don't have room to keep. The photos can go in their scrapbook.
Purchase inexpensive picture frames and stack artwork in them to create a revolving show.

Back Top

Comments

Carmen | December 30, 2008 at 12:49 am - §

I have been trying to find a way to make my childrens artwork from school into a scrap book that they can enjoy colages of there artwork in years to come. I was hoping to find a way to make them into an actual story book if you know of where I can get the software or the places online to get this done please let me know!! Thank you your site does have many other wonderful ideas