5 Apps to Store Your Kids’ Art (And Free up Your Fridge)

When your child was small, you began collecting paintings, drawings, and other masterpieces from preschool and at home. As more children arrive and they all go off to school, it’s easy to accumulate piles and boxes of arts and crafts. Everything your kids create is meaningful to you, and while you cannot bear the thought of tossing little painted handprints or popsicle stick houses in the trash, there’s just no way to hang on to everything.

There are loads of things you can do with your kiddos’ artwork. Package some up and send it to family and friends (grandparents eat this stuff up!). Laminate paintings or drawings to make custom placemats. Create an art wall and rotate the exhibit monthly. Cut it up and make it into gift tags, wrapping paper, greeting cards, or other stationery-based items.

But before you pack it away, ship it off, or chop it up, you should snap some photos for posterity. It’s so easy to do, and gives everyone something to look back on fondly as time goes by. You can even download a mobile app that lets you archive their artwork, complete with details. Check out the apps we discovered that can help you store memories of all of your children’s art projects:

ArtKive

One of the cool things about this app is its versatility. You can opt to organize your child’s artwork yourself – or let ArtKive do it for you!

Take a picture of the art, add details, and save art to the app’s cloud storage. Everything is saved in chronological order. Later, you can turn individual pieces into a book or other gift-worthy items. Alternatively, you can upgrade to a Concierge package and receive professionally digitized art bound in a hardcover portfolio.

The app is available on iTunes and Google Play. 

Canvsly

Pronounced “canvas-ly,” this app was created with parents in mind. At first blush, it is not much different from other apps for storing kids’ artwork.

Delve a little deeper though, and you will discover that Canvsly offers a bit of incentive for archiving your young prodigy’s projects. You will earn virtual rewards as you reach special milestones in the form of badges.

You can create individual profiles for each child, enabling you to store their art separately. In addition, you can share images in a variety of ways or turn your child’s designs into fun keepsakes such as prints or coffee mugs.

This free app is available on iTunes and Google Play.  

Keepy

If you are looking for a more interactive app to help you archive children’s art pieces, Keepy may be the one for you.

Once you capture a photo of the piece and upload it to the app, you can enhance it by cropping and editing the image. It doesn’t end there, though. You can also add an audio or video recording (maybe your kiddo describing the painting or drawing?), letting you build an interactive scrapbook to share with family and friends.

You can store more than just art as well. For instance, a high score on a paper, a great report card, or pictures of your child in a school play can make it a true scrapbook organized year by year. Family members can also respond with video comments, which children will love to watch.

Available on iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon, you can download this free app for almost any device.

Artbook

When you snap a picture of your child’s art collection, you can use this app to turn it into a virtual art book.

Choose from several colorful and stylish backgrounds that will show off the paintings, drawings, and collages on each page. Opt to place multiple pieces per page or display each masterpiece individually.

Create multiple books by category, such as “First Grade” or “Animals.” When you are finished, save it as a PDF file that you can send to anyone or print to create a hardcopy version. Save the book using Dropbox and share on Facebook, Twitter, or even Google+.

You can download this free app on iTunes. It is available for both iPhone and iPad.

Art My Kid Made

If you already use Dropbox to store important personal or professional documents and files, you will appreciate this app, which utilizes this same cloud-based storage service.

The first step in using this app is to take a photo of your child’s artwork. Next, you add tags that will help you find it later. This is where you probably should do a little creative thinking and use descriptive words that you are likely to use later, such as red, finger paint, elephant, and kindergarten.

Each photo is saved with both Dropbox and Evernote. In addition, you can link your social media profiles to the app and share digital versions of your little Picasso’s works of art. Alternatively, use the Pop Carte feature to create greetings or postcards using the images. An Artist of the Day feed features children whose parents use the app as well.

Available on the iPhone app store.

How do you like to store your child’s artworks? Share your ideas (and favorite artwork-storing apps) with us!