Keepsakes. What exactly to keep?

[UterusUterusGhali]

I'm trying to declutter. I simply have too much shite. A lot of it is "sentimental" stuff.

What would you keep/chuck out of this stuff?

Old school reports
New baby cards
Toddler drawings
Congrats wedding cards (exH)
Love letters etc (exH)
Wedding dress
Ticket stubs
Xmas cards from DC

I'm sure I'll think of more as I come across it.

We have 3 boxes. 1 for each child. All school reports, ticket stubs, photos etc go in the relevant box. If the boxes start getting too full, I'll go through and cull it a bit. Think about what you'd be interested/happy to discover in 20 years time & work from there. I photographed lots of art models etc that my DC have made but we couldn't keep due to storage.

What size boxes, Willy? Are they a spechul sort or just a shoe box?

They're not shoeboxes admittedly but they're those 'really useful' boxes (3 for 2 when I bought them) and they stack together. However big you can accommodate!

Ah that seems sensible. I had pretty ones in mind but actually that makes much more sense. Thank you.

We just did this.

Two boxes each in the attic:

Reduced down all the boxes to :

Early school work
Few baby clothes
Christening gifts
Pictures
Interesting letters

Every year I photocopy the letters to Santa and they go in a scrap book.

I hardly keep anything.
Kept their new baby cards and put in a scrapbook, have probably got most school reports and some drawings.
Not kept anywhere specific or designated.
When you say tickets, what tickets do you mean? Like old train and cinema tickets? The dc keep things like their gig tickets etc but other than that, I don’t think I have any.
Very minimalist here!

Yeah sports and festival and theatre tickets. That I always meant to put in a scrapbook.

What about stuff relating to ex? Old valentines cards etc. Seems silly to keep them and sad to chuck away.

I'm not sure i have much of that at all!!

Photograph everything and store in on onedrive/Dropbox etc

I don’t even keep cards from my dp! Keep what you want really, I don’t want to clutter up my house with useless things so I get rid of stuff regularly.

Of your list, I have kept
all school reports,
all new baby cards,
a few particularly special bits of art work from across their childhoods, wedding cards (but I am still happily married, I'm not sure I'd bother otherwise),
I don't have any love letters but I have kept all the many letters my family and school friends wrote to me when I was at uni
Wedding dress, but see above re wedding cards, I don't know if I would want to keep a dress from a failed marriage ??? Maybe I would?

I haven't kept ticket stubs but I have programmes, but I really want to dump those now.

I wouldn't keep Christmas cards but I have kept one or two Mothers Day cards.

I wish I could throw more out. I have baby books but they are mostly incomplete and my children are nearly all grown up now. I also have a file box for each child, but they are inadequate really. Those really useful boxes sound......really useful!

I'd have already thrown away anything relating to an ex.

I have a file with lots of plastic wallets in for the kids. They contain first cinema tickets / school reports / ticket stubs of anything particularly special (theatre etc) / first drawings/ first shoes / big projects from school/ certificates & awards / favourite first book .. and lots of other memories. He's 16 now and LOVES looking through it.

Anything ex related, I'd bin.

i'm not masses of help because i did a culling of all this stuff (and sort of regretted it) - we were moving house frequently at the time due to DP's job so i just got sick of taking boxes of stuff with us. I just kept one or two of the cards from my DP ( where he had bothered to write something properly) really good photos only, a couple of meaningful letters from friends or deceased relatives, few bits of gifted but meaningful costume jewellery. I didn't bother with my own schoolwork, random cards, ticket stubs etc at all.
What i did do instead is start a word document list of any memories that were important to me, even small things -eg 'grandmas amazing date and walnut loaf cake' or ' year 8 camp, when bob capsized his kayak' and i just perpetually add memories to it in lieu of keeping the object. It saves a ton of space and illicts the same memory jog and fuzzy feelings for me. That way i can write about say favourite toys I had, rather than keep them all. Sometimes i even google for photos of them and save them instead to look at. Maybe a bit weird but quite a minimalist way of doing it!

My mother once reduced a whole attic of sentimental stuff down for me in my absence and it all fits in one box which i think suffices if i fancy a root around in memories. it contains a selection of photos through childhood, a few cards from important persons only ( bday card from deceased GP's, one from DM and DF, godparents) christening outfit, little baby booties, my favourite polly pocket and (small) bear, about 5 of my favourite childhood books, and probably no more than 5 bits of schoolwork stuff - a certificate, school photo, poem, drawings. Everything else got ruthlessly binned .

We have an old suitcase for each child. I have kept lots of artwork, and I love having it. I have all the little shoes lined up on a ledge along my staircase, and I love seeing them. I like stumbling across things, so when I find a ticket stub from 25 years ago tucked into a book, or a letter from my father at the bottom of a drawer, I often leave them there, to stumble on again a few years from now.

I am not very good at decluttering though. I enjoy looking around my house and having every object remind me of some person or some moment from the past.

Wedding dress for dc
Bin other exh stuff unless dc want
Choose special cards from the rest
Likewise special pictures and school reports (eg 1st ever 1 etc)

I have heard people suggest taking photos of all drawings etc but not keeping them but this would not feel the same i imagine.

Its hard! I constantly try to declutter but its sooo hard!

Mine collect less the older they get, and things like gig ticket takes up no room at all. There's not much room left now.

I also collected a newspaper from the day they were born, some coins from the year and some stamps.

Other than that, mainly firsts and things from the older generation. I kept a locket of hair but can't stand teeth so they went with the tooth fairy.

Good idea to photograph artwork - we had so much that I binned it all.

I’m obviously hard hearted. I’d recycle all the paper you mentioned and would donate the wedding dress.

Small selection of drawings/cards from DC. Rest would go.