Organising kids' artwork

Earlier this week on Unclutterer there was a great idea about how to get rid of your adult childs' clutter. The idea revolved around taking photos of your childs' things, posting it on Flickr and getting them to sort it online.

I have a similar method to keep my young kids' things under control (before they ends up as out of control adult things). You know that once they start kinder or daycare there is going to be truckloads of the stuff. What do you do with it all? I couldn't bear the heartbroken looks on their faces when I had to throw out their precious work. So I kept it. We soon had a wall full of paintings, piles on the end of the bench (that frequently blew all over the room when a door was left open), a stash in their bedrooms, some in the magazine rack - you get the picture.

Not wanting to feeling guilty tossing the mountains of stuff and instead trying to live around it, my solution was to keep only the really precious things (first Mothers’ Day gift, etc). For the rest, I take a photo and then into the recycle pile it goes (albeit rather discreetly). The kids are happy because they can look through their artwork on the computer any time they like. You could even make a screen saver or wallpaper from the photos - major kiddie kudos. I'm happy because we don't have stuff everywhere. I can look through the photos whenever I'm feeling sentimental. I no longer feel guilty. It's win-win.