I admit I'm a packrat and I'm also one who creates stacks of things with intentions of getting back to it soon. Well last night I started going through my "stacks" and boxes of things that I need to go decide what to do with. I've got a pretty good size box going of stuff for a garage sale mom and I are planning.

My question for you is, what do you keep as far as memory type things? I have every single birthday, valentines day, easter, christmas card Brendan has ever gotten. I've already got quite the collection and he's only 6. Any creative ideas on a way to organize them or create a book of them? Do you guys save every little thing, or am I just to sentimental?

Help please! thanks!

By Kate on Friday, September 14, 2007 - 01:12 pm:

Well, um, I throw away cards as soon as I'm done reading them... Honestly, if you keep every card Brendan ever gets, there IS no way to organize them because I'm not sure anyone is going to want to go thru and read every single one years and years from now, so even if they were nicely put in a binder, it would be quite time consuming to get thru them all, and the binders would take up a lot of room. I would keep just the special cards...the cards with more than just 'love grandma' on them. If someone writes a nice sentiment or writes a letter, then those I can see saving. But I wouldn't bother to save what essentially amounts to Hallmark's own personal greeting to your child, with just that 'love Aunt Julie' tacked on the end.

So what DO I keep? Stories that they have written, especially good or endearing drawings they've made, the *occasional* card they've made (yes, I even throw away cards from my children), etc. I am way more interested in keeping things that they have created on their own, than a spelling test or a fill in the blank worksheet. My oldest has hundreds of stories she's written saved on the computer. I will never delete those. My youngest has hand written and dictated stories which I will keep forever. I'm lucky my kids are writers 'cause that's the stuff that is not only worth preserving, but it's easy to save. Parents of artists have a tougher time as those projects are so bulky and fragile!! So basically for me it's pictures, video, and handwritten stuff that I save. I honestly hate clutter and can't function in it, so I throw away as much as I can.

By Tonya on Friday, September 14, 2007 - 01:13 pm:

well hello to my twin!!

I just got yelled at my Rich the other nighth I have piles everywhere. I guess this weekend he is going to help me clean. I am scared of what we will find in our house. Our room and the livingroom are looking really bad right now from piles of stuff.

No suggestions just sympathy.

By Breann on Friday, September 14, 2007 - 01:27 pm:

I have a 3-ring binder for each of my kids. I use it to keep special papers/cards/artwork in. It's fun to look back to when they were just learning to color and see how far they've come.
I don't keep every paper, not even close. Just the extra special ones.

By Reds9298 on Friday, September 14, 2007 - 01:45 pm:

For cards, I keep them for a year or so and then when I clean out one day I realize how silly it is to keep them! I don't keep the ones to me (only from DH) but the ones to Natalie. If it's an extra-spoecial card for some reason, I will keep it, but otherwise I keep it for several months or so and then throw it out. I just went through a baby box of Natalie's (she's 3)and found ALL the cards from her birth. There were 75 of them and I had kept them all!!! I realized how silly this is! I kept a few from my grandparents that were special, and put the rest in her art box. I keep a shoe box of old cards for doing crafts/art projects. She loves to find pictures and just glue them, so we're sort of recycling at the same time.

I'm dealing with the art right now though, so I'm with you. I've had a box up to now of her art things, crafts she's made, etc. and now started a preschool folder for those things. I have scrapbooked some extra special pictures - her first painting, first handprint, drawing and 'x' and 'o', but really I need to dump the rest that's not "special". It's hard to decide, espeically for me because I'm so sentimental and trying to keep her young. I think you just have to realize that they're going to grow up even after saving all that stuff (I myself have not realized this yet completely!), so I'm trying to just keep the extra special things.

It's difficult to decide, I know!

By Marcia on Friday, September 14, 2007 - 02:39 pm:

I have a hard time throwing any of it out. With so many kids, you can imagine the stuff we have around here! Still, after losing some kids, it's so hard to get rid of things. Every once in a while I come across some of the K work I did with my nephew, with his precious little printing on it, and I'm so glad I save it. He died that year. Getting rid of any of their work almost caused anxiety attacks for me, so I saved it all. Now that they're older, I'm trashing a lot of the stuff I don't care about. I am saving all of their journals, lots of the pictures they've drawn, etc. I have saved all shower, baby and birthday cards, but have pitched Valentine's Day cards. I think I kept the first few, but that's it. I think I'll put all of the cards in scrapbooks one day.
So, I'm really no help to you at all. LOL

By Rayelle on Friday, September 14, 2007 - 03:05 pm:

I have a hard time with this too. I've read that you can somehow scan art work on to the computer but I'm too technology challenged for that! I don't keep worksheets and things, just art or other creative things. I've kept only special cards and we use the rest in projects too. Sometimes I get in super clean out mode, and then regret some of the things I've gotten rid of, but it hasn't been traumatic or anything like I had previously thought.

By Dawnk777 on Friday, September 14, 2007 - 03:47 pm:

My daughter, Sarah, saved a whole bunch of stuff, that was important to her, put them all in sheet protectors and put them in a binder. I recently needed to know the name of one of her scholarships and the sheet was in the binder. Yay!

We should get Emily started with a binder of high school stuff.

By Tink on Friday, September 14, 2007 - 06:11 pm:

I read this idea somewhere and it has worked wonders for us. I ask the pizza parlor for a few extra-large pizza boxes and each child gets one for each year. Cards, drawings, reports, essays, journals all fit and I only keep as much as will fit in each box. We have the occasional diorama that doesn't but even the large 12x18" construction paper fits. They are all stacked up and labeled by year and my kids love looking at how their handwriting or art skills have improved.

By Dana on Saturday, September 15, 2007 - 05:56 am:

I've been using boxes from my husbands office. They are just the right size and have a nice folded lip that slips closed to keep the lid from opening. We've been doing this for a while now, and we call them "memory boxes" It makes it easy to look back and still tidy. But we're about out of room in the cabinet I keep the boxes, so still not the best option.

And cards, I toss almost all of them after the first week of displaying them.

By Kaye on Saturday, September 15, 2007 - 08:41 am:

Okay well since losing my mom, I have a whole new persepective too. It is great to have to stuff, but when there is too much it is hard to go through, plus when you die someone else has to decide if you kept this paper for 40 years, then it must be important right?

So for cards. I scrapbook they make pages that have a row of pockets, it can hold about 4-5 cards. So they keep that many, it goes in their scrapbook. For school work, each kid has a tub, I put anything it it I think I want to keep. At the end of each school year I go through this tub. I keep 2-3 papers from each child. It goes into a binder.

I am a huge reformed packrat. I am far from perfect. My system means I have piles but can sort them and lose stuff.

But ultimately you can't organize clutter and eventually your house will fill up. Yes you should keep things, but if you keep too much, those things will never be looked at.

By Karen~admin on Saturday, September 15, 2007 - 09:34 am:

I've always been a packrat, but in recent years I'm purging! My goal is to downsize, and I'm making progress. I'm keeping only the most sentimental things. Ditto *junk* in the house.