Home decorating.
I know I am meant to be proud of everything my children do but there has to be a limit to the amount of handmade stuff a house can contain. Wrigglebot now goes to Sunday School and Activity Group and all three kids go to Playgroup. That equals a lot of pictures with pretty colours of nothing recognisable. There are many handmade cards and rockets and paintings and paper plates with paper flowers stuck on them. And they all seem to be so special to them. People come into my house and wonder at the rubbish adorning my walls and lying on my benches, they wonder why I don’t throw it all away, is my recycling bin full?
I try to palm stuff off as presents for other people (grandparents are my target mostly because they are too nice too refuse) but that only works some of the time. Some children have short memories, not mine, weeks later they will remember doing some particular craft and I struggle to find creative excuses for things that I have managed to throw out. So here is my question; what is the limit? How long do I need to keep a piece of art for and will my kids hate me forever if they know their art becomes fodder for the garbage truck?
March 22nd, 2010 at 7:32 am
Can they each have a bin that their creative arts go into? That way when it gets full then you can go through it together and throw out the things that are less important to them.
March 22nd, 2010 at 8:27 am
I’m looking forward to hearing what readers suggest – I have absolutely no idea and I am sure I will be heading down the same track before long! We are loving playdough so thankfully that can be mashed back together and recreated – and thrown out with ease! I was disappointed that my mum didn’t keep much of what I did as a child – though I am one of 4 children and we didn’t have a whole lot of space.
Maybe there’s a creative way of keeping everything???
March 27th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
I have a sort of display type book for all the bits and pieces that are A4 and smaller and for the time being it’s just all together in there and that’s kept on the shelf with all their books. For the bigger things like paintings we re-use as wrapping paper (Grandparents usually like that idea and then if they want to throw it away it’s up to them). When we do clean ups I can often convince them to put some old art work in the re-cycling bin and I let them do it. We also keep things on the fridge until I need the magnet for something else! Then of course I do just throw the odd thing out when they are asleep..it sounds mean but you have to do it sometimes. My son used to want to hang on to everything but he’s quite happy to recycle a lot more now. The only time the tables were turned was when I had spent ages making a cardboard dinosaur for him (it took like all afternoon) and after he had it in his room on display for a few weeks he said “Mummy, I think we can recycle this now” and I was a little taken aback, but I did say it was his choice and that he had to be sure because I wouldn’t be making another one! hehe…hope this helps!
April 12th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
That’s a great idea Jo, I think I need to invest in some display books, maybe at the end of the year they could pick their favourite ones to give to different family members for Christmas. I’m quite devious in the lengths I’ll go to put precious junk in other people’s houses.