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things to make from children's artwork

Declutter Your Home: Things to Make From Children's Artwork

In our two previous posts we have shared various ways to display our children’s masterpieces as well as how to declutter, digitise, store, and back up artwork. If you have decided to let go of a painting or a drawing, you don’t necessarily have to throw it in the bin. Here are some ideas for what you could make from the artwork instead:

Reuse Your Children’s Artwork

Gift Wrap

Turn drawings and paintings into gift wrap! If the gift is bigger than the artwork, use other paper to wrap it and use the artwork to decorate one or several sides. Or make a collage of several artworks big enough to wrap the present in.

Things to Make from Children's Artwork: Painting repurposed as wrapping paper by Simply In Order

Lolly Bags or Gift Bags

Personalise your party lolly bags or gift bags by using neutral bags and gluing a drawing on them or fold bags with bigger drawings.

Things to Make from Children's Artwork: Painting repurposed as gift bag by Simply In Order

Paper Boxes

Remember how we used to make these? Check out this video if you need instructions.

Paper Box by Origami-Instructions

Cards

Make gift cards or thank you cards out of the artwork by gluing it on neutral cards in a matching colour.

Surprise Someone

Why not send one or two to grandma, grandpa, aunts and uncles, or other people that would love to receive an unexpected gift? It's best not to send it to people who already have a house full of children’s artworks, though!

Keep Artwork Using Minimal Space

The trick here is, of course, to digitise the artwork. You can then enjoy it in a different way (read the tips about digitising artwork in our last post).

Photo Books

If you can part with the originals or at least most of them, it saves you from storing a lot of paper. Instead, create a photo book by digitising the artwork with your camera, scanner, or an app like Artkive. It’s probably not worth creating a photo book every year; maybe have one per child for every three years.

Things to Make from Children's Artwork: Photo Book with Digitised Artwork by Simply In Order

Digital Photo Frame

One of the simplest ways to enjoy the artwork of your children is to put the digital versions on a digital photo frame. Then you can let it run automatically. Even though digital frames are not that trendy now, it is still one of the easiest and quickest ways to look at photos. It's certainly better than having them buried somewhere on your computer.

Video Slideshow

Instead of creating a photo book - or in addition to it - you might consider a video slideshow. This is an easy way to look at your children’s artwork and probably the most effective in terms of saving space. You don’t even need to burn a DVD or have it on a USB. You can easily share it with others by sending them a link. 

Make Keepsakes

The options are endless! Once the artwork is digitised, you can do pretty much anything with it as far as keepsakes go. Think keyrings and mousepads to jewellery, stuffed animals, or even clothes! We love to make a a yearly calendar for the grandparents with a mix of photos of the children and their artwork. It’s always a winner! We hope these articles help you to get more joy from your children’s artworks.

About our Guest Writer:

Chantal Imbach is a professional home and photo organiser and owner of Simply In Order in Eltham, Victoria. To her, being organised doesn’t mean living in a display home but living a simpler life. As a mum of two boys, she knows how challenging this can be. She has recently started to specialise in helping clients to look after their photo collections. Her passion is to help save these collections and stories so that they can be passed on to future generations in a meaningful way. Find more of Chantal’s articles here

Images: Simply In Order

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