Whadya do with all the STUFF!!!

[Joso]

Quick survey. What do you all do with the paintings, pictures, masks, cards etc etc. Do you keep it ALL!! Do you chuck some of it? Scrapbook? What? Help. I'm drowning!!!

I am a lovely mummy who keeps all my kids' pictures/masks/cards/calendars/stories/work books etc in plastic stacker boxes in loft but crap housewife for doing the same

DH thinks there's no need to keep them all but I love to go through some of them occasionally and I'd feel terrible about chucking out my kids' hard work. Incidentally dh has about 10 years worth of Land Rover bloody mags also in loft!!!

I put the nicest bits up on the kitchen wall, and keep the rest in a big cardboard box.

send them to family

I'm like jampot - have mounds of the stuff (some of it nearly 20 years old now!)

But an organised and tidy (and artistic) friend of mine went with scrapbooks - she was quite selective and did it as they went along. She would also mount some of it on craft paper first before sticking up with blutack.

If you put up things you do want to keep don't leave them out for too long as they get yellowed and crispy round the edges. Oh, and do date them!

I'm probably a bad mummy but my two bring home at least a dozen pictures a week between them. I keep things like mothers day cards, the odd special drawing - eg the first time ds1 drew a man and it looked like a man! and I keep stuff they have made especially for me or dh in a large folder. Anything they want to keep goes on their wall, anything else goes in the bin. And pictures on walls in their room are kept to around five or six, so when a new one goes up an old one comes down.

I don't have a loft as we had it converted so storage space is minimal. If I kept everything we'd have to move house.

oooh I like the idea of a scrapbook Janh. Think I might start one for each of them. Better than keeping them in a folder no-one ever looks at.

sorry, but I'm a bad Mummy- it goes in the bin ASAP. Maybe when it starts to look like something I'll feel different. Mother's Day cards etc kept on the mantlepiece for a wek or so then into the bin it goes.

I'm with bundle on this. Acquire a large extended family of old grannies and great-aunts (if you don't already have them), and post the stuff to them. They're delighted and tell everyone your child is a genius, you get the kudos for not only being a fab mum who does arty stuff with her kids, but also for taking the time to think of your granny. All this and no clutter too!

What's not to like?

My mum kept the good stuff we did. Then when I was 21 for my birthday she made me a photo album which had photos of me from my 1st day and special events, photos of all the family at various times etc and at the back stuck in about 10 of my drawings and stories from when I was little.

It's hilarious - especially the letter to Father Christmas where I specified which nuts I wanted at the bottom of my stocking and the story I wrote about the carpets in the carpet shop. Am hoping to do this for my kids.

If you can be bothered and have a digital camera, photograph it, then they can be stored on the computer, but don't take up real space in your house.

I have journals, scrap books, albims, boxes, drawers etc all full of stuff.

I found the blindfoild she had to wear in hospital the other day when she was under the UV lamp thinging becasue she was jaundiced. it was so diddy. It was with one of her 6 little wrist name bands, ahhhhhhhh.

How funny, as I was typing this my mate from downstairs office came up with a huge wooden champagne box for me to keep 'stuff' in!!! She knows me so well.

I also just had an email from Eve to say they are going to send me some of the leettes theyt received from readers in response to that article. It'll be great to keep those for Lottie to read when she's older

sit down with kids and pile of stuff. let them choose say 5 things from each year. Then cull the rest!! Date kept items in box for each child, along with school class photos, swimming certs, badges, old brownie sash,the odd school book from each year, etc.
When they leave home wrap up and give as a leaving present. Done!!!

Nono don't do that! My PIL keep bringing all the stuff my DP accumulated during his childhood and DP won't throw it away.

PIL are moving this weekend and I just KNOW that we are going to get so much stuff brought up!

We keep one picture per child attached to the fridge. If a new painting/drawing comes home they like better then the old one comes down. I can't bear to throw them away, though, so have a scrap book for each child to stick the best works of art in. We also send a picture by each child to their grandparents and great grandparents for birthdays, mother's/father's days and Christmas (and any other time I write to them!). The rest we use for gift wrapping! All our family and friends receive presents (birthdays, Christmas, mother's and father's days, new babies, engagements etc) lovingly wrapped in a work of art made by our children. Most comment on the lovely wrapping and the kids are incredibly proud that their paintings/drawings get such an important job!

I've taken photos of some pictures before (ahem) losing them. They take up no space at all on my PC (well, no "real" space IYKWIM!)

I always write the child's name and date on the back of whatever they've done and also what it was - things then get shoved in a ring binder (or, more accurately) in aheap on top of the ring binders awaiting filing). If I look through the ring binders and think "WTF is that?!" it goes.

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I keep most of it for ages, then clear out the not so good stuff, then feel really guilty for chucking it.

DD has a little string line with pegs on that can hang up about 6 or 7 bits of art work. The more recent go and that, and we have 1 or 2 stuck to the cupbairds in the kitchen area. One or two of her others have been kept in her 'memory' box. Cards she has made for us go in our boxes. But the rest I am afraid comes off the string and into the boin. DD is only 2 and already we get loads, so just can't sdave it all.