I know I can’t be the only mom out there who is horrible at printing photos. Jett is almost three and all I have are a bunch of polaroids scattered about. Even though I’m bad at printing photos, I found a simple way to keep select works of art that I think it pretty genius. I also started to keep some of said polaroids in it as well as Christmas cards, Santa photos, etc. I’m telling you all about it in today’s post!
I bought this art portfolio after Jett came home with his first piece of art from school. He was just a baby but it was his footprints in some sort of Halloween design and of course I couldn’t throw it away! I had a larger version of this art portfolio in college and when I was trying to figure out how to store Jett’s artwork I thought “why not just use one of those”?! It wasn’t until this year I realized I should also throw in Christmas cards, Santa photos, and PHOTOS OF HIM WITH HIS ARTWORK! I’ll be honest, I’m kind of upset I didn’t think of this until he was 2.5. But, it’s better late than never!
Here’s how I do it. First I take a photo (or 10) of him with his masterpiece on my iPhone. Could I use a Polaroid camera? Yes. Would they be blurry AF? Also yes. So, this way just works better with a busy toddler! I have the Fujifilm Instax printer (on major sale!) so I can choose one of the photos on my phone that’s actually in focus and print the photo right then and there! I also use this label maker to put the date on it. I love how vintage it looks and so far, none of them have fallen off of the older polaroids I have so it seems like it will stay on over time. You can also use Sharpie marker if you’re worried about the label falling off. Either way, polaroids are just the best! I slip in the polaroid with the piece of artwork for now. I thought about gluing them together but decided against it.
If you really wanted to go above and beyond, you could get pieces of paper to separate each plastic sleeve kind of like a scrapbook, but the regular portfolio works great too! For me, if it’s easy I’m more likely to do it and keep up with it so this system works perfectly. Also if you’re wondering- I definitely don’t keep everything he comes home from school with! Most of it is from holidays, or things that have hand/footprints on them. I also keep lists I’ve written out and things like that because I personally love looking back on them. I have a list of what he ate for dinner at 11 months and it made me laugh. I was so strategic about what I fed him- ha! His current school doesn’t really send much artwork home now which makes things easy for me. The V for vases piece from the photos just makes me laugh because he got in the car and said he got me flowers- LOL!
I hope this will help you preserve your child’s artwork and memories. It sure has been easy for me and something I’m so happy that I did! I can’t wait to look back on these memories with him when he’s older.
Xo,
Haley
