Decluttering help - digitising mementoes?

[JustADadHere]

Hi

We are moving into a new house (going from 3 bed bungalow to a 4 bed terrace) in a few weeks and are actively decluttering. On of the biggest issues we have in the new place is a lack of loft (converted to the fourth bedroom) or garage. There is a shed in the back garden. We have several boxes of papers/cards/children's artwork that are troubling us - what is the best way to keep them, when in all reality, we might never look at them (although it was nice to see the card my wife gave me for valentines two weeks after we started dating!). We have thought of scanning and then recycling.

Any advice?

I know its not the answer you want but get the stuff down to the minimum and then keep them.
I'm sure you'll have more space in a 4 bedroom terrace than a bungalow, especially if the terrace is an older property and the bungalow a newer house.
We keep ours in a high cupboard in a bedroom or kids have a keepsake box on top of their wardrobes.
To me it wouldn't be the same looking at a picture rather than the original thing.
Can't help with the digi bits as not techie, but thought I'd add my bit

I am a dreadful nostalgic hoarder and am currently frying to do the same as you....I am keeping the truly important stuff and scanning others. What I have done to get stuff down is take photos etc out of albums, chuck the album and keep the pics in a pretty box.

Oh, and I am making lots of photobooks online. Loads of offers always.

Tricky. We're doing something similar. I think it helps to have several goes at it and also allow yourself to put things back and review later. Sort of sifting periodically. I recently ditched stuff that had any negative emotions attached to it - easy - and then tried to cull the other stuff but went too far too soon and had to fish letters out of the rubbish next morning which I've since had real pleasure re-reading. Could you ask children to pick which are their favourite pictures to put in a big scrapbook and then photograph the rest?

My rule of thumb is that if it costs me to store something it has to be worth that money. We're deliberately not boarding our loft for storage and will have to store in a damp garage so things will need to go in waterproof boxes (buying them from a marine supply store rather than a regular shop as much cheaper and better quality). Paying for storage helps focus the mind!

Also being ruthless with photos and only keeping ones with good memories attached and that look good - half of mine were rubbish or from different angles.

photograph if you can be bothered; but who ever looks at kids' scribbles?

if you do want to keep photos, buy two backup drives. You keep one, someone else keeps the other at their house.

I am scanning DDs artwork from nursery. I'm very anti cluter. Everything is digitised.

Have you tried that?

Photo books can hold hundreds of photos. I think the last one I made was 100 pages and had around 400 photos in it. I make mine on Photobox.