There is a paper trail through out my house. Can you help me?
This is the first year I have a little one in Sunday School, bringing home papers and craft projects and I don't know what to do with them. I don't throw anything out because it all seems so precious. But I realize he's not even in pre-school yet! If I don't throw out anything for the next 16 years, I'm going to be suffocated by paper!!! So I have some questions for the more experienced mommy's out there:
1. How do you decide what to keep and what to toss?
2. How do you store/ organize those papers and crafts you decide to keep?
Send me ideas, links, pictures, etc. My refrigerator is running out of room!
Photo Credit: Photo by Jessicafm
8 comments:
Designate a spot on fridge for Matthews artwork and rotate each day as you receive them. After a month or so pick one that is exceptional. Continue this way... Store the keepers in bin for happy memories!
I like the previous suggestion a lot. Also, you can take a digital photo of any of them and then you'll have a digital scrapbook of all his projects, and even though it takes up virtual space, it will never end up crumpled in a corner. :)
We are adding a bulletin board to the boys room in addition to the valance featured on my blogs. http://recipesdealsetc.blogspot.com/2009/02/notebook-experiment.html
We try to only have 1 of each of the boys "art work" up on the fridge mainly b/c Levi just drags it around the house. Digital Scrapbook sounds good to me too!
I am a friend of Shayna Pulliam. She told me about your blog and I am loving it. I have a 4 yr old, 2 year old and 3 week old. Someone once told me to keep everything with your childrens hand prints & send the other crafts to soldiers at war and missionaries. Then the kids feel that they are contributing to the kingdom of God by encouraging others. Also, I have a big cork board in my sons room where we put all his school work. We have a sticker chart on it too so if he hangs it up after telling me about it, he gets a sticker. After getting a row of stickers we go out for ice cream. Then the papers are not all over the house. Those are idea for older moms in my life.
Bobbie Jo Steidinger
I may not be an experienced mommy on this however I have heard of and seen these digital books and love the idea. I suppose that you could make these books yearly with your favorites and keep a few in a file as momentos too. I am sure Matthew would love to get one of those snapfish books with all of his pictures in them to look through. :)
Welllll, I use to be a sucker and keep everything.....no I throw almost everything away. I keep about 2 things per school year. There are some great ideas that people have posted though! I just think to myself, what are they going to do with all this paper some day....and the answer is, they will probably feel guilty and not want to throw it away. So, I'm just making the decision for them. LOL! And, you know that I'm kinda a keeper of things. When you have a small house and the walls are closing in on you, you tend to not keep the papers.
Hey! I love your blog! I found it through Traci's. So, so fun. As far as this post...It can be hard to pitch things. I take pictures of some things. Some of the holiday type stuff I pack with that season's decorations and use it for several years. If I forget to date it or write a name on the back, it will eventually get pitched.
I keep only the really special things and put it in their memory trunk after I hang it on a magnet board for awhile. I throw away most coloring pages etc....I sometimes feel a little guilt but not much. One way I reuse their stuff is now that I am not close to my parents or in-laws, I send them an envelope full of school papers,extra pics, SS artwork etc. about once a month so they can enjoy it- if they want to keep it forever then more power to them!! I also recently started sending this type of stuff to our sponsored children through World Vision...I figured they might enjoy getting stuff from another child. Keep up the posting....I enjoy reading it when I can!
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