Tips and Tricks for Childhood Keepsakes

I started drafting this post way back at the end of the school year but I didn't get around to posting it in the craziness of summer. 

Now that we are about a month into the new school year, I thought it would be helpful to share. 

I am a sentimental hoarder. There really is no nice way of saying hoarder. I don't have a problem getting rid of clothes, toys, and other "stuff." I don't have a lot of clutter or a closet stuffed to the brim. But I have always, always had a habit of keeping tiny sentimental items. I had a "special drawer" growing up. I had a tiny box under my bed filled with scraps of paper and souvenir gemstone rocks I would collect at gas station gift shops. I like ticket stubs and gifted greeting cards, I love strip photos and napkin notes. Small ephemeral pieces that anchor a memory. They are hard for me to throw away.

Kids school projects and artwork are a problem for me, I want to keep it all. But, I am also a highly organized person and an archivist by profession. I understand the importance and benefit of periodic sorting and tossing. The professional term for throwing things away is called weeding. My criteria for what to keep has a few strategies, hopefully they will help you too.

WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THAT KIDS ART/SCHOOLWORK??

1) Evaluate everything when it first comes home and define a category to automatically toss. This is pretty easy for me and consists of coloring pages and random papers with just a few scribbles on them. For coloring pages, keep a few favorites and toss the rest. Original drawings and more complicated crafts pass to the next category.

2) For everything that passes the initial sort, get a small plastic storage box and stash everything in there all year long. I got this at Michael's craft store in the scrapbook area and it fits most everything.

2) If you save everything for a bit in that bin and then sort to keep later, much of the initial attachment will wear off and it helps you to really pick out what is worth keeping long-term. Just make sure you follow through on that sorting! When the bin is full, go through it and make three piles: Yes/No/Maybe.

For everything in the No pile, take photos of ones you want to remember and just toss the rest. Don't waffle about it - you've got the picture!

For everything in the Maybe pile, sort through it again and again until everything is either a Yes or No. If you waffle, try tip #3.

3) If you are on the fence about tossing something, hang it on the fridge or put it by your desk somewhere you can see it regularly. Staring at it day after day will either endear you to it enough to keep it forever or more likely the attachment will wear and you can toss it.

BUT WHAT IF EVERYTHING MAKES IT INTO MY YES PILE, OR I STILL HAVE TOO MUCH?

For everything in the Yes pile, evaluate it again.

4) Your initial sort to keep was likely based on how cute something was or how unique. Now you need to look at it with the likelihood of preservation. Kids crafts are made of low quality materials that do not hold up well over time. Review your keep items for the following: 

First, school glue wears off quickly, so a lot of the crafts that come home with glued elements will not last through the years. It's best to photograph those and toss them. Same with tape. 

Second, anything with dried food on it (like pasta or cereal) has to get tossed. It's so hard, but trust me, avoid anything that will attract bugs over the decades or eventually fall off or crumble into oblivion.

Third, anything that is dimensional over one inch takes up too much space (remember, you'll have likely 12/14+ years of stuff to keep), so only keep dimensional items sparingly. For all the little hats/crowns that Kip makes at school, I cut off the colored element and tossed the headband part. Stick to keeping flat drawings and only a few paintings (paint chips and falls off over time). 

If you have an item in your pile that does not pass this preservation check but you just LOVE it so much, it's okay to keep it but be aware it probably won't look like it does now in a year or more. That's what happened with Kip's Thanksgiving turkey hat from Pre-K. 

I love it so much and did what I could to get it through the pass. I cut it off the headband to make it smaller and I stapled the feathers that were glued. I know the feathers will start falling apart and the eyes and beak will fall off but I can't throw it away just yet. I'll review it again later.

If you have truly an exceptional piece of art (or just the cutest most sentimental piece of paper), frame it and hang it on the wall for everyone to enjoy.

Kip is about a month into Kindergarten now and the amount of stuff he brings home has risen exponentially compared to last year. He makes a hat nearly every day while they are working through the letters of the alphabet. I have started applying my sort system and it is working SO well. Everything that comes home I put in this little magnetic sorter on our "Family Center." 

Once it fills up I sort through it and pass keep items into his plastic storage box in my room. 

Last year it took half the school year to fill the bin. This year, it got full fast!

It took me about two minutes to do my three pile process, remove the colored elements from all the hat bands, reduced the size of everything in the YES pile and now I'm left with this:

I'm sure a lot of this won't make the cut by the end of the school year but that's okay. I want to keep them for now and they will be reviewed again later. 

At the end of Kip's Pre-K year, I made my final selection and moved them from the blue bin to a plastic file sorter (it came in a four pack - two for each kid split into elementary and middle/high). I allotted two hanging files for each grade.

Now it's all neat and tidy and I feel good knowing I can keep what I love and not be overwhelmed by the rest.

The point is, it's okay to have sentimental attachments and it's okay to be the memory keeper. AND, you can still keep your brain and house space reasonably organized by taking a few archivist-approved measures to manage your collection. Your future self will thank you, and I hope your kids will too when they are able to look through their bins and treasure the memories with you.