Recently in Parenting Hacks Category

Rey loves drawing more than anything.
We got him Mala easel from IKEA around the end of 2006, since then, he has been drawing all sorts of things with all sorts of drawing materials; colouring pencils, pastels, crayons, water colours, and markers, etc. You name it.

I think most kids LIKE drawing, if they don't LOVE it.
Honestly, I have not met a kid who HATE drawing.

Often, they just keep drawing all sorts of things using so many pieces of papers, after a while, we just stop paying attention, or stop tracking them. Then, we end up with so many sheets of drawing and craftworks, not knowing which belongs to what age, and/or sometimes even to which kid (if you have multiple numbers of kids who love to draw...like me!).

Now, I really really regret of not labeling or categorizing them one by one, with the name of the artist and the date of drawing/crafting for future reference. Sometimes, chores of everyday life can be so overwhelming, you tend to neglect somethings that are not pressing, thinking that "I will do it later, when I have time", then too often, you completely forget about it altogether!

So here is a short list of easy and simple things you can do to keep the record of your kids' artworks, and ways to make them even more memorable. ;-)

1. First, take snap photos of your kid while she/he is doing the artwork, preferably with a digital camera (even cameraphone will do!). This way, you can have digital & visual record of your kid's artworks, including vital information such as the date, place, and the way your kid looked like then. ;-)) You can just *snap!* and go about doing things you are busy with. It takes only a few seconds, if you are using a cameraphone.
   
2. Upload the digital photos to any photo-sharing site like Flickr as often as possible; this way, your digital record will be safe even if you lost everything to a disaster like a fire or flood. You may lose the actual drawing and crafts and everything else, but the memory remains intact.
   
3. In the modern world of Internet and online tools, you can basically do anything with the digital images of your kid's artwork; you can use them on your blog (if you have one), create an online timeline at circaVie and/or digital scrapbooks.
   
4. You can also convert them into a really big artwork for that big blank (ahem, crayon-scrawled) wall of your living room, or kid's room. http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/ You can print them out on your own computer, and put them all together! This can be a fun project with really amazing results - pictures up to 20 meters in size, both color or B/W. This can be done almost as cheap as free, and if you are tired of the current image, you can change it anytime at almost no extra cost! ;-))
   

I'm sure there are many many more things we can do with our kids' artworks.
I will update this list, once I gather more ideas and nifty hacks to share.
Any ideas and/or comments from you are of course welcomed! ;-)