The Urge to Purge

I'm a collector!  Not of stamps, or coins or spoons, but of my children's art work, school work, every sketch, scribble, colouring sheet, school sheet.  I keep it all!  No piece is too small or too large!

However, after 6 years, there's simply no room for it all!  I have such a hard time parting with it, or deciding which piece to keep and which to toss, that I came up with a solution our whole family can live with!  Photos!

I keep everything in a large folder made out of 2 pieces of bristle board, duct taped together on the ends and bottom.  I date everything that is made on the front right corner and place it into this folder.  Then, at the end of the year/beginning of the new year, I photograph the items from each child's portfolio, upload the photos to my computer and then pick a site that I can make photo-books with (I usually use Shutterfly because of the quality paper and design choices).

This way, instead of keeping all of my children's art and school work, I just have 1 photo-book with all of their work!

I look forward to when my children are older and I can pass on the photo-books as keepsakes instead of old, faded and beat-up pieces of paper and artwork.

I get a keepsake of everything they have done, and I don't have to feel the guilt of tossing it away!