How many of my child's drawings should I keep physically?

Around 10–15 a year, which is a thin folder for each year of childhood. Beyond that the collection becomes impossible to browse and, paradoxically, each piece is worth less. The selection criterion isn't 'the prettiest' but 'the most representative of who they were then'.

How do I photograph kids' artwork so it looks good?

In indirect natural light near a window, with no flash and no shadow of yourself falling across the paper. Put the drawing on a plain surface, shoot straight down with the phone parallel to the paper, and crop the edges. Five minutes once a month covers a whole month's drawings — do them all in one go, it's far faster than one at a time.

How do I throw away drawings without feeling guilty?

Photograph them first — the guilt comes from the sense of losing something, and the photo removes exactly that loss. Practically: don't discard them in front of your child, put the extra drawings back into circulation (gift wrap, posted to grandparents, collages), and remember that a child produces hundreds of drawings a year. Keeping all of them isn't devotion, it's just clutter.

What should I write on the back of a drawing?

The date, the child's age and — most importantly — their explanation, in their exact words. 'It's mum, but she's flying, because mums can fly when they're asleep' is worth more years later than the drawing itself. Just ask them 'what's this?' and write the answer down verbatim, without correcting it.

What to Do With Your Kids' Artwork: The System That Stops the Pile

A preschooler produces, without exaggeration, several hundred drawings, collages, cards and "works" a year. Each one comes home in the backpack with the same energy: "Look what I made for you!" And each one ends up, at best, on the fridge — and from there, in a box in the cupboard.

Then comes the day the box won't close, and you're standing over it with a strange sense of guilt. Throwing any of it out feels like a betrayal. Keeping all of it is impossible. So you do nothing — and buy another box.

The good news: the problem isn't you, it's the method. And the fix takes four steps and ten minutes a month.

The uncomfortable truth: the value isn't in the paper

Let's take the pressure off straight away. In twenty years, your child will not want five hundred drawings. They will never browse them — there are too many to mean anything. What they will want is something else:

the progression — the scribble at 2 next to the potato-person at 4 next to the portrait at 7;
what they said about them — their explanations, in their words;
a few physical pieces to hold, not a warehouse.

"The drawing isn't the memory. The memory is what the child said about it."

Once you accept that, everything simplifies: keep a little, save the rest digitally, and write down the words. In that order.

Step 1: The holding box

The first practical problem is that sorting "in the moment" is impossible — your child is looking up at you and you cannot say "we're not keeping this one".

The fix: a plain cardboard box in a cupboard, into which everything goes, unsorted, as it comes home. No decisions, no guilt, no overcrowded fridge. The sorting doesn't happen now.

Step 2: Ten minutes a month

Once a month — the same day each time, so it becomes a habit — empty the box onto the table after your child is asleep. You'll find that sorting "cold", with thirty pieces in front of you, is infinitely easier than one at a time.

Split into three piles:

KEEP (1–2 a month). What qualifies: the first time they drew a person with a body, the family portrait, something that took real effort, something with a memorable story behind it. The criterion isn't "the prettiest", it's "the most representative of who they were this month".
PHOTOGRAPH (5–10). Worth saving, not worth storing.
CIRCULATE (the rest). Not "rubbish" — see below.

By the end of the year: 10–15 physical pieces, i.e. a thin folder. Twenty years of childhood fit on a shelf, not in a cupboard.

Step 3: How to photograph it so it looks good

The difference between a bad photo and a good one is two minutes of attention:

Indirect natural light, near a window. No flash — it creates glare and falsifies the colours.
A plain background — a wooden floor, an empty table, a large sheet of white paper underneath.
Straight down, phone parallel to the paper. Watch that your own shadow doesn't fall across the drawing (stand side-on to the window).
Crop the edges immediately, while the phone is still in your hand.
All in one go. Ten drawings photographed in a row takes five minutes; one a day for ten days never happens.

A bonus that never fails to move people: have your child hold the drawing and photograph them with it. Years later you have the artwork, the artist, and the size of their hands that year.

Step 4: The part that matters most — the words

This is where it's all won, and it's the step almost everyone skips.

When your child hands you the drawing, just ask: "What's this?" And write the answer down exactly as they say it — on the back of the paper or in the photo's description. No correcting, no tidying it up.

Because eighteen years from now, a blue rectangle with three lines will tell them nothing. But the sentence "It's mum, but she's flying, because mums can fly when they're asleep" will tell them everything about the child they used to be.

Note the minimum: the date, their age, and their explanation. Three pieces of information, five seconds. It's the same logic as with photographs — an image without its story is evidence, not a memory (we covered that in the photo organizing guide).

The drawings, with their stories, in your child's capsule

Photograph the drawing, add their age and their own explanation — and it stays in your child's chronological thread, alongside letters and recordings, until they turn 18.

Start your child's capsule

Free, no card. Encrypted, stored in the EU, export anytime.

What to do with the rest (guilt-free)

The "circulate" pile has far better destinations than the bin:

Gift wrap. A present wrapped in a drawing made by their grandchild is the best wrapping paper in the world for a grandparent.
Posted in the mail. To grandparents, godparents, cousins. An envelope with a drawing arriving in the post is an event for a child — and for the person receiving it. It pairs perfectly with the long-distance grandparents ritual.
Greeting cards. Cut up and glued to card, they become birthday cards for the whole year.
An annual collage. Ten small drawings stuck on one big sheet and photographed — you keep the year's whole "vibe" in a single image.
Recycled. Yes, that's allowed. Not in front of your child, and without inner drama: the value was in the moment they handed it to you, and that isn't lost.

Three mistakes that keep the chaos going

Using the fridge as an archive. The fridge is a display case, not storage. The healthy rule: a maximum of 3–4 drawings at a time, rotated weekly, everything else straight into the holding box.
"I'll sort it when I have time." You won't. That's exactly why the system has to be ten minutes a month, not a weekend project.
Professional scanners and perfect folders. The more equipment a ritual requires, the more certain it is that it won't happen. Your phone is enough.

And if you already have three full boxes?

Don't sort them all. Seriously. Do one single hour-long session, with a glass of wine, and apply a brutal but effective rule: choose 10 pieces from each box. Photograph another 20 or so that jump out at you. The rest — circulate.

You'll end up with 30 physical pieces, 60 photos and three empty boxes. And years from now, your child will have a collection they can actually browse — instead of a heap nobody would ever have opened.

What to do with your kids' artwork (the system that stops the pile)