Hanging kids artwork; minimizing kids paper clutter on minimal budget

First, has your landlord specifically said that you aren’t allowed to hang anything? Was that in your rental agreement? So you can’t have artwork, mirrors, shelves, or anything hanging on your walls? That seems severely restricting, in my opinion. 

Most places don’t mind if you use small nails or pushpins. They typically have to clean walls and repaint before the next tenant anyway–or at least they should. 

I like the washi tape idea, diagonally over the 4 corners of paper or the frames. I don’t know why washi tape would affect the walls any differently than clear Scotch tape. Should be safe for the walls, but then you might rip the pictures when you go to remove the tape. 

We have an Ikea wire with clips for our artwork. It goes down the length of the hallway and there is a set number of hooks. If the children create a masterpiece they want to hang up, they must choose another masterpiece to take down. So their artwork rotates, and we all have the pleasure of enjoying their creations until THEY decide they want to replace it with something else. This really helped me with the Mommy guilt of throwing away their pictures. We throw away when they decide they’re ready to replace the art, so that takes the decision-making off my shoulders. Ha! 

I don’t have any experience with the 3M command hooks on walls. We used one on our back door at our old house because the top of the door was glass, and I wanted a wreath hanging on it. It held the wreath and lasted through cold and wet weather, but then I had to do a lot of scraping when I took the hook off. I would bet that the adhesive would take paint or texture off your walls.

I’m sorry I don’t have more to offer here. 😉 If I were you, I would look over your rental agreement again or check with your landlord to see exactly what he allows to be hung on the walls. I can’t imagine him having much success as a landlord if he won’t allow people to even use pushpins!

Blessings,

Lindsey

ETA: There is an app called Artkive that is specifically for saving children’s artwork, with the option to turn it into a book if you choose. Looks like a great option for people who just can’t stand the thought of discarding those works of art. 😉

We use exactly what Lindsey does for our history timeline  🙂

For artwork, I painted four basic canvases with bright colors, then hung them in a row on a wall over our couch.  That requires four small nails/hangers.  Attach a short piece of string to the back of each canvas at the middle top, so a little loop hangs over the front… then hang a clip (like those IKEA ones that go with the wire) from the string to clip on artwork.  It sounds complicated, I wish I could post a picture!  But it was so easy, and the kids can change out their artwork whenever they want.  And my husband is happy with it because it looks neat and tidy (the canvas makes a nice neat frame, no matter how ragged the artwork might be sometimes).  Like Lindsey, the kids have to take something down to add something new.

Each of our kids also has a small box where they can save whatever work they want–my only rule is that it all has to fit in there!  So if it’s full, they have to get rid of something to add something new.

I tried the folder idea you’re talking about for a while. It didn’t work for us. I found that they were basically stuffing papers into it, but no one ever enjoyed the folder’s contents. So I guess the folder was a means of artwork hoarding??? LOL

I sure hope you don’t feel like I’m trying to turn you into me! I just don’t have suggestions for keeping a lot of papers because that isn’t something I do. 

They have rain gutters hung by their beds. The main purpose is for them to keep whatever books they happen to be reading at night and in the mornings right beside them since they are in bunkbeds right now and don’t have nightstands. They don’t put drawings or photos in their gutters. Special photos are framed and put on their bookshelves in their rooms. They each have a “treasure” box which is stored under the bed. If they wanted to use a push pin and hang up artwork around their room, I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but they never ask to do that. Our picture line seems to work well for them as well as me.

I have had them up 6-9 months at a time on painted drywall and on painted wood doors.

I did have them on painted concrete in the basement for over a year and the paint peeled, but it was just basic paint on concrete, not special concrete paint. I was told basic paint would not work, LOL, but we have a dry but unfinished basement the paint stuck well, but the hooks peeled a bit, but they have worked well.

Forgot…

Currently they are being used to hold towels on the back of bathroom door, back packs on the kids doors, toy bow and arrow sets in theur bedrooms, piano book bags in the living room

I use them for all sorts of things and love how easy it is to change and adjust as needs change with out making a mess of the walls

For the miscellaneous papers your kids want to display… Here’s what we do: Each child has a strong magnetic clip on the refrigerator to display his/her latest piece of artwork. When someone wants to display something new, the old comes down. The decision is then made to save it (3hole punch and put in binder) or discard it. I always have them check with me before throwing away artwork. Sometimes Mom wants to save it even when they don’t. 😉