Handy Mamma Tip: Overflowing Kid-art

We all cherish every single piece of artwork, homework and award each of our children brings home. We all treasure them forever, hermetically sealing each piece and storing them away in temperature-controlled rooms dedicated to the preservation of said memories.

NOT!!

If the above scenario were true, we would be living on the streets, our homes completely overwhelmed with the deluge of proof that our tuition or tax money is well-spent; prolific reminders that their teachers are doing a good job.

I, for one, vigorously employ the recycling bin because I'm allergic to construction paper and cheap tempera paint.

How do I manage this feat without tears of recrimination from my 9 yr-old and accusatory tantrums from my 5 yr-old?? Well, let's just thank the wonders of modern technology.

DIGITAL CAMERA, people.

We have chosen our powder room between the kitchen and living room for our artwork display, but as the kids get older, that toilet association will surely offend my 9 yr-old. This room DOES get the most in-depth appreciation from our guests, who provide a captive audience while viewing, but again, the SYMBOLISM can be misinterpreted. Sigh.

Anyway, the kids get to choose any blank space on the walls of the powder room to hang their work, they write their names on the front along with the DATE, slap it up with tape (aaahhh, the benefits of semi-gloss paint) and voila! charming artwork for all to enjoy.

We continue this pattern until all the walls are relatively full, then grab the digital camera and take photos of all the pieces individually. This takes less than 5 minutes and represents months of effort from the kids. I then download all the photos to my computer, do the requisite photo editing (mostly cropping, but the occasional Photoshop to correct any mistakes or coloring outside the lines, color correct paintings to match my decor, etc) then upload it all to Kodak Easyshare and Apple's MobileMe as an album. This album is then sent off to all the relatives, wh0 are the only people obligated by blood to oohhh and aahhh over my kids' creations.

At this point you have a couple options.

1) Keep the truly amazing pieces and have them framed. If it's not worth framing, it's not worth saving. Got it?

2) In about 5 minutes, the digital album of artwork can be arranged into a hard-cover coffee-table book, delivered to your home (or Grandma's for her birthday) for under $30 on the Kodak site. This beats the hell out of loose pieces of construction paper stored in mildewy boxes and crawling with book-lice in your attic for years to come. Kids LOVE to see their work in a book.

3) The rest of the photos can live happily on your hard drive in a file simply labeled (I keep a separate file of artwork for each kid), safely copied on the photo storage site of your choice, periodically shared with your kids or relatives in slide-show format.

Recycle everything else.