Creating art is an amazing activity for children to engage in – it taps into their creative side, gets them thinking and can help develop language. Parents, however, often find themselves with an abundance of children’s drawings. Whether from the child’s free time, projects at school, or special holiday crafts. It feels wasteful to toss all those extra drawings in the trash, but I can’t possibly keep every single drawing my child creates.
Luckily, if you think outside the box a little, you’ll realize there’s actually a lot you can do to reuse those drawings.
1. Wrapping Paper
– This is one of my favorite things to do, and it’s so easy. Simply use the drawings in place in wrapping paper. Bigger items will most likely need more drawings, but simply taping them together easily resolves this. Wrap some coordinating ribbon around it, adorn with a bow and you’re ready to go. Plus, kids get such a sense of pride knowing that they made the wrapping paper their best friend’s gift is wrapped it.
2. Stationary & Greeting Cards
– Artwork with larger amounts of empty space lends itself well in becoming stationary. Instead of buying a notepad, simply cut a drawing into squares and bind with a keyring. Or fold up a drawing, write a pretty message or find a pretty scrapbook sticker. Easy!
3. Paper Beads
– Depending on the age of your child, this could be an activity done together. Beads are constructed by cutting papers into strips, wrapping around a pencil, chopstick or other small stick like items and securing with glue. Beads can be made into different shapes by cutting strips into different shapes. Beads can be strung on string or elastic by themselves of with other beads. PaperVine has a great tutorial on making paper beads.
4. Boxes
– Better suited to thicker more durable paper, boxes and organizers can be a great option for thicker paper. Use boxes to organize a drawer, store gifts or decorate. Kids love putting things in boxes, so it’s great for kids too. Miss Printables has a great downloadable paper box template set to help get you started.
5. Seed Bombs
– Seed bombs simply balls filled with seeds. They are an easy, fun way to plant flowers. Dabbles and Babbles has a great tutorial on how to make seed bombs. Choose bee-friendly flowers as an extra way to be ecofriendly. When finished simply plant or lay your bombs on the ground and you’ll have a bunch of pretty flowers.
Even though you can’t keep all of your children’s artwork, you can still recycle them and put them to good use. Any other ideas for what to do with children’s artwork? Leave a comment below.
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