Monday 01 December, 2014

Organize Kids’ Keepsakes


If you have children, you know just how many keepsakes can accumulate over the years, especially during elementary school. Some of these keepsakes are items you might want to save for yourself, while others are things your children wish to save. They may include everything from report cards and birthday cards to childhood artwork to […]


If you have children, you know just how many keepsakes can accumulate over the years, especially during elementary school. Some of these keepsakes are items you might want to save for yourself, while others are things your children wish to save. They may include everything from report cards and birthday cards to childhood artwork to awards. Children also often save brochures and pamphlets from family trips so that they can remember all the exciting places they have visited over the years.

These papers can pile up quickly, resulting in a lot of clutter. Worse, since they are disorganized, it is hard to find anything in the stacks of mementos. Papers can easily become crinkled, torn, and otherwise damaged as well. Many households have drawers which are completely packed with these papers. Since nobody can find anything in the stacks, most of these precious keepsakes become unnoticed and forgotten over time. The whole purpose of a keepsake however is to have something you can look back on to remember the past and to see a retrospective of accomplishment and experiences.

If you are trying to find ways to organize keepsakes, you might consider a system using clear plastic storage containers. Using these bins to organize baby keepsakes and child keepsakes is a perfect way to keep them from making a mess in your house, getting torn or crumpled, or getting misplaced. This is really a much better system than simply allowing them to stack up inside folders and bedroom drawers.

Plastic bins with lids are the best choice for this organization chore, since you can stack them up on top of one another, which makes them easy to store in a closet. You can also place them on a shelf or in a drawer. Even a single child will often accumulate several boxes of keepsakes over time, and you will definitely want at least two keepsake boxes—one for your child, and one for yourself. If you have more than one child, you definitely will need multiple boxes. You can purchase different colors to denote each child’s keepsakes, and label the boxes with your children’s names so that you can easily keep mementos straight.

You may also want to consider a filing system inside your bins using filing folders and labels. This is a great way to keep a log of either time or materials. You could have a system which for example has folders that say “Preschool,” “Kindergarten,” “First Grade,” “Second Grade,” and so on. Or you could have a system with labels reading, “Artwork,” “Awards,” “Cards,” and so forth. This is all a matter of personal preference, and whatever you think will work best for keeping things organized.

Starting an organizational system for your children’s keepsakes helps both you and your children to keep track of important papers over the years. It also tells your children that you value their accomplishments, and that you want to make the effort to take care of their special papers. Children will also appreciate having a way to organize their treasured artwork, writing, and awards.

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