If you've got a child in school, there's no doubt that you have lots of arts and crafts projects and worksheets coming into your home every single day. You stare at the mangled drawings of circles and squares or the sentences they worked so hard on creating and you think to yourself, "how could I throw this away?" The mound slowly grows in your kitchen and suddenly there's no counter space left. Heck, you can barely see the floor because it's covered in masterpieces. This time you think to yourself, "how can I live like this?"

Sound familiar?

Fear not! There's a way to honor your mini artist/author/poet while still keeping a handle on their keepsake and art collection. And at the end of the day, no one will feel like they've been robbed of their greatest accomplishments. Trust me on this one. 

1) Chuck the generic stuff immediately. You can be the judge of what's considered special but don't be afraid to throw away some of the items immediately. It's important to empty out your child's backpack every day so take the time to do so and quickly determine what can get the immediate goodbye.

2) Display the nicer artwork for a week. After you decide what projects should stick around for a bit, hang them on the fridge or a bulletin board so your child can be proud of their accomplishments. Real art in the home! Switch things over as the new batch comes in and kindly send the older items to the trash. 

3) Hold on to the most prized creations. Create a curated collection of your child's best work. Best work. That means the projects that they spent lots of time on in class or the creations that are extra special and involved. *Construction paper with cut-up shapes attached need not apply.*

4) Revisit and revise the collection. If you find your child's special box getting too full, reconsider what's inside. Maybe some of the older projects can go now? After all, if there's a box of projects to refer to when they're older, you've done a great job.

That wasn't too bad, was it?!