Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Recycling Toddler Art

My kids are obsessed with producing large amounts of “artwork” (or as they say “ot-wook”). At first I kept every little scrap that they finished, and then it became overwhelming so I started to throw some of it away (feeling guilty of course). And then it clicked, for the cost of a 45 cent stamp they could send their little art pieces to family and friends to look at, hang on THEIR fridge, or recycle.

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While the kids had the hard work under control, I had some administrative duties.

Make a list with names and addresses of family and friends to send to. I used our rolling Christmas list and just eliminated people as needed. We hung up the list so as we mail artwork we can check them off the list. I wanted to include a note in each envelope to explain a little bit. I printed some of these to include in each envelope.

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You can download a sheet of them (6 notes per page) for free here and update with your child(ren)’s names.

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Print ahead of time and be sure to include enough for everyone on the list. As the little masters finish their artwork each day, have them help stuff and decorate the envelope and walk it out to the mailbox. We do one envelope per day and the kids love every part of the process.

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4 comments:

  1. You are a genius!! We are just getting into the art work phase now, and when we were out of wrapping paper, I had the brilliant idea of wrapping my dad's birthday gift in computer paper and letting D go to town with markers and stickers, it was a hit! But mailing art? Awesome, and who does not love to get mail?

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    1. Thanks Whitney! And that wrapping paper idea is great, I'm so going to start doing that too.

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  2. Great idea! We have tons of artwork too :/ feel so guilty tossing some

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    1. Guilt was definitely the motive behind this. They're like little machines churning out scribbles that mean something (to them), so sending it to someone else to find something to do with it makes me feel better. ;)

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