Saving Childhood Mementos

                       

Here is the "before":

These are those Alex expandable accordions that they sell to keep kids art in check. As you can see they did not work for us. You are probably thinking "pink for girl, blue for boy. She just needs to pare down". Those who know us will not be surprised to know that ALL of that is my daughter's. That girl loves art (see her I heart art shirt here). 

I am not such a fan of art, certainly not of the mounds and mounds of papers that it leaves in it's wake. I needed a simpler solution, one I could keep up with for each child, and that wasn't so art specific. Enter U-Line, and their cardboard boxes:

Each box is labeled with a child's name and age. So there is one box for 0-2, which holds birth mementos, baby hats, etc, and another box for preschool. I plan to keep adding boxes for each year of school, slowly moving them into our storage room as the kids outgrow each box. Right now I keep them in my home library. This is working well, since I can put important items in as needed, without going down to the basement storage. My most recent additions were the parent-teacher evaluations for my older two. I am keeping a *small* selection of artwork, but since these boxes are finite in size, as opposed o the expandable previous solution, it helps keep me in check. Feel free to get all crafty with these, it was all I could do to make sure that each child's baby box had everything in it; I had previously been storing baby mementos in show boxes in the nursery closet, not exactly as foolproof plan.

Jessica

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