Kids Art Keepsake for Non-Scrapbookers

When my kids started school this year I went into a panic because I had not done anything with the huge piles of artwork and assignments they had brought home from their year of Kindergarten. I had no idea what to do with it, but I needed to do something quick before the new stuff started pouring in! Scrapbooking is WAY too time consuming and expensive for me.  I didn't want to use one of those bulky personalized accordion styled portfolios either. When I asked friends what they do with their kids' stuff, one friend gave me the idea of taking photos of the artwork and cataloging it somehow.  I thought that was a great idea.  Of course there are photo sites that will help you do this, but I was looking for the quickest and cheapest way.

When I saw this great portfolio in Michaels I had found my way.  The portfolio is made up of top-loading plastic sleeves.  So, not only does it let you insert pages, but it would also be a good way to store items besides art, like certificates.  With my 40% coupon, the portfolio was only about $12-13.

I literally spent a full rainy day going through all the girls work.  I was able to filter them down to the highlights and a few actual pieces I didn't want to toss.  Then, I started taking photos of everything.  Because I'm most familiar with Powerpoint, I just inserted the photos into page layouts on that.  If I had done this earlier, I would have spent more time on making the layouts prettier, but my mission was just to create the collection.  Once I had them all laid out, I printed out the 11 x 17" pages, and started putting them into the books.

I I tried to categorize the different artwork:

The pockets gave me a place to keep special assignments, like handwriting examples.

And special items like their class photo and yearbook.

Now all their mementos from the full year are in one place, in one sleek binder.  Renee and Siena love looking through all their work.  I've already started their book for 1st grade, and doing it little by little is letting me put more effort into the page layouts to make it a little nicer.

How do you keep your child's school work??