Organizing Your Child's Artwork

This spring break, I am determined to get organized.  We aren’t going on a fancy vacation, so I figured that the one thing I can do to make myself feel better is to get organized.  I have various piles of the kids’ artwork around the house, so I gathered them up and started scanning them.  If they were too big to scan, I took photographs of them.  It really didn’t take long at all.  I then dumped them in a folder for each kid and then organized them into the year they were created.  There. Done.  No more piles or tubs of papers. Tip:  When you are photographing your artwork there are a few things to remember.

• Get the wrinkles and dents out as best as you can.  IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE PERFECT!  I have to keep reminding myself this.

• I lay mine on the floor by a sunny window so I don’t have to use a flash.  It may work with a flash, but sometimes the flash will be too strong because you will be standing over your picture and will be too close to use the flash.  I have also photographed artwork on my front porch.

• Stand directly over the picture so that your lens is parallel to the ground.  In order to get a true representation of your child’s art, you don’t want to take the picture on an angle, or it will become distorted.

The creations I love the most are the self portraits.  The self portraits tell you so much about your child and they are just so darned cute.  I like to make sure that I have one for each year.

For those of you who like to scrapbook or do digital scrapbooking, this is a great way to display your child’s artwork.  I like to do digital scrapbooking in photoshop when I have time, which is almost never.  But every once in a while I force myself to make a book for each kid.  They make great gifts for the grandparents too.  So, with all the time I put into making the book, I get more bang for my buck if I give them to the grandparents too.

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I will create a book for you with your pictures during January through April.  I have more information on the website.  If you think you may be interested in this service, contact me and we can discuss the details.