What should I do with this?

Inside cupboard doors! What a good idea!! We are seeing small grandson today and no doubt a painting or two will come my way!! Old fridge ones in cupboard, new ones on fridge! Problem solved and enthusiasm maintained!! Greyduster I did chuckle about the Temple of Doom!!! I've also had gifts that have sadly (!!) come unstuck, rescued from the dogs bed, and finally had to be ' put away' for safe keeping!! The only useful thing I've ever had was (from GD2) a pencil holder, made from a loo roll. I still have it in the kitchen housing my fridge pen!!!

I live in a tiny flat but memories of my beloved art worked being rejected flat out at as rubbish by my parents and thrown straight in the bin will not allow me to part with any treasures in trusted to me.
I put paintings and drawings inside cupboard and wardrobe doors so I can see them every time I open a cupboard, I cover it in pva glue or decoupage varnish and line drawers with it. I laminate some and put them on the memory tree for granddad (my late husband) to enjoy from heaven. Cards and some pictures are framed and put in to my memory gallery in my guest room. I have used pictures to frame to give to my daughter as gifts and I have incorporated children’s art in some of my craft projects. It can be tricky but I think creativity needs to be encouraged and treasured so I just have to be as creative as I can in storing it in a way that they get joy from seeing their work and I get a tidy home.

Scribbles - you sound like my mother in law - she was like that with my husbands toys and threw them out or gave them away when she thought it was time fir them to go so she could keep a tidy house . No soul !! He is the same now - wants everything to be thrown away asap. I have had such a battle with him over the years to be more empathetic and keep cherished items. how horrible To say that to a child about their previous creation. I would have been mortiphied if I was that child - you have no idea what hidden damage you did to your kids confidence.

Think yourself very lucky that you are getting these handmade presents from your grandchildren. Some people don't have any children and therefore grandchildren to be loved by. .
Not me - I have four sons and lots of their precious offerings. . Pictures always went on the cork boards in the kitchen for a while until they got too faded or /replaced - the better Ones were kept and put into folders fir each one- along with handwritten cards, photographs and school reports. The chunky pottery black bird and the nondescript brown pottery animal - not sure if it is a hippo - are still on my windiw sill in pride of peace that the 35 yr old son made. The fire irons the 42 year old son made for GCSE adorn our fireplace and the oak chair another son made fir GCSE, I had for years, is now in his own house. I like the idea of photographing the pictures and putting on a memory stick as they do deteriorate over time and you can't keep everything. . It's lovely to be able to show their grandchildren what Daddy made.

So good I posted twice.

Big Yellow?

Big Yellow?

My own DGC live 5000 miles away, so I treasure any art works that we receive.(Though I have no "3D" ones!) I keep a folder of them. Some great ideas here from Gransnetters, especially to photograph things. I truly think that children can understand that not everything can be kept forever!

Sadly we seem to be past the stage where GS brings his 'artworks' for me, or makes things. The ones I have are stored in a large art folder - about seven years worth! Always displayed for a while and then carefully put away. As for models, as they disintegrated, the bits went into the bin, but we retained them to the bitter end. The last one was a rather splendid Temple of Doom. It met its own doom when it fell off the dressing table in the spare room when I was moving a basket of ironing and I decided it's time had come - it had had a good innings. We still have things made out of Lego bricks and K'Nex gracing "his" room!

Well,each to his own. All I know is that my grandson aged six makes and draws things especially for me, and to tell him that the spaceship or his untalented garish picture is too horrible for my fridge and too tatty for my sitting room would in my opinion be extremely unkind. No doubt in a year or two the gifts will sadly stop, but for the minute, even the thought of seeing his crestfallen face as I dismiss his efforts as rubbish and only fit for the dustbin would be cruel in the extreme, and it's something I wouldn't even contemplate, never mind actually do.

Select one piece and frame it. Get a box file, date each piece and file away.

Nigglynellie & Elrel - nobody was humiliated! My mother would find something nice to say about my choice of colours or the neatness of my handwriting before pointing out the object in question was inherently useless (a cardboard cover for the toaster in a house where there wasn't a toaster?) or plain ugly (a lurid papier-maché version of an African tribal mask). Even a 7 year old could see the sense of this. I tried to take the same line with my daughter - praise her effort and made it clear it wasn't any fault of hers that I didn't like or need it. Actually, there were a couple of things of hers that I did keep. One was a prettily covered box, just the right size for filing all those odd recipes I used to cut out of newspapers in pre-internet times. The other wasn't artwork but the life-saving certificate she proudly gained at the swimming club, aged around 8. I had that pinned to my desk for years and only gave it back to her when we moved house last year. She worked really hard for that certificate and I felt humbled that she wanted to give it to me.

Sorry, that was in reply to NanaandGrampy who suggested photographing the masterpieces and saving them on the computer

What a brilliant idea! I'll steal if you don't mind

I have pretty well everything made by my two DDs and DGD 1 (the latter spent a lot of her early years with us). There's a bag of stuff under the stairs, bits and pieces in the china cabinet, in the garage is a medieval house + clay mask + loads of other stuff. DH's boss once asked him why he had a toilet roll policeman on his desk. As I write I can see a basket full of papier mache fruits made at Harvest time at craft club probably in about 1990. The Christmas table decoration made around that year was only recently binned but not until after a photograph had been taken. In the pantry is a pencil holder made by a child from a washing up liquid tube when I was teaching in the early 1970s. By the side of the TV is a wooden lorry - all these treasures are only the beginning of the inventory!! There's stuff all over the house. There is a masterpiece that we framed - a drawing of DH by DD1 when she was at primary school, it's brilliant.

My sister put anything in A4 format into a ring binder with plastic sleeves. Not quite as imaginative as all the other suggestions. However, this phase only lasts during kindergarten and the first years of primary school. By the time they are 11, they'll be begging you to throw those old things out.

I still have two plastic coasters made by my niece when she was seven, she's forty-one now. I kept them because the colours are lovely, all the others were disposed of when my parents died - by which time my sister's children were all adults and actually did most of the chucking out. There is light at the end of the tunnel

I made this for displaying their paintings, as each new one arrives the previous "masterpiece" is put safely away recycling box unless it's truly precious to me.
So far only Mummy and Daddy have had to find a home for the larger makes so I can't help with the Castle problem.

How harsh some people are! I could never hurt their feelings like that. I keep offerjngs for ages, gradually movingthem to less visible places and replacing with newer thins. I kep. Early all the artworks in a folder (i have all my DCs too, all neatly dated and labelled. ) models are more difficult! I find adter 6 months or so they have forgotten.
My DD once painted a huge and hideous picture of me on a big wooden (or canvas?) board and wanted it displayed!! I kept it propoed up i the bedroom for months then hid it in the wardrobe in case she asked for it and eventually threw it out!

Scribbles - I once saw a small child in the street outside a school proudly show his mother his artwork. 'I don't want that rubbish!' she said as she stuffed it in a bin.
I'm sure he learnt a lesson that day from such an insensitive reaction.

What I do is I replace the earlier pieces with the latest pieces. Because usually the child themselves realizes the older they get the better their work so they find that quite reasonable. I keep a couple of samples of work from each age in a folder that I can look back at in the future.

Scribbles, the thought of taking your attitude with my much loved grandson is too horrid to contemplate. My own mother always accepted home made gifts from both myself when little and later my children with genuine delight as have I. The thought of hurting and humiliating any child would be unkind enough, but my own children?!!!

OP - Take photos of Junkingham Palace and its proud young architect. Is there a sheltered corner of your garden where it could be put out for fairies, ants, spiders, bees and butterflies? Provide tiny picnic crumbs and drops of sweet liquids. Imaginative play may ensue but, horrors, it could be inadvertently darked on one damp night.
I'm thinking it might then gradually disintegrate. Failing that, the loft, top of a wardrobe, garage or under a bed. But do take the photographs of the masterpiece first and display them in pride of place.
As for the 2D work, I have a folder labelled 'DGD's Art'. She's late teens now but that and a memory box are there for her should she be interested at some future date! Mind you I'm the GM who took a 5' silver space rocket back to DD's house where it stayed in the dining room for far too long, small DGS was delighted with this prop from his school play, his DM wasn't ...

My own mother was ruthless about not wanting what she generally called "school tat". It went straight in the bin and I took the same line with my daughter. I don't think either of us are psychologically scarred as a result! I don't have grandchildren but, if the issue should arise in the future, I'd have no hesitation in refusing such offerings.

Tell them my house isnt very big. Pick the favourite for the fridge and ask her to look after the rest for you at her house. Every now and then ask her for a different piece.

I think it is rather mean that Mums refuse to keep their own child's art work and foist it onto grandparents!
I had an under stairs cupboard where I displayed my boys treasures, on the inside. That protected pictures from being destroyed by accident.