Pictures Roundup

This month’s Organizing Roundup (hosted by Lara), was for our pictures and memorabilia.  With a 4 year old and a 6 year old, I have and over abundance of both.

The first thing i tackled was their school papers.  I was keeping them all in that black 24-p0cket file, which allowed me to keep every single thing.

I decided that wasn’t working.  I weeded through it all and decided all I needed was the pile on the left.  The pile on the right went to the recycling bin.  I’ll show you where I put the keepers in a second.

Next, I tackled the artwork. Since we moved to the new house, I hadn’t come up with a place for the art similar to what we had going in the old house.  I had the kids go through what we had and gave them two choices: keep it or  give it away.  They were allowed to keep 12 pieces each.

I took pictures of the pieces they chose to get rid of and have them running as a slideshow for my screen saver.  The 12 pieces they chose to keep are now hung on the walls in the stairwell (my friend gave me the clips and the string so that was cool..and FREE!).  For every new piece that comes into the house, I ask the same questions: keep it or give it away.  The are really good about choosing.  They never have more than 12 pieces so it keeps the clutter down.

Next up came the pictures.  The pictures were pretty corralled, but I just didn’t like the way they looked.  I know it’s nitpicky but it was really starting to get to me that the photo boxes didn’t match. (I know, leave me alone.)  There was also some stuff on the shelves that didn’t belong their (beer steins, anyone?) so the area just needed a little sprucing up.  Pay close attention to the boxes on the bottom left.

Here’s the after.  Not a huge difference, but the photo boxes are all neutral now. (I know, leave me alone.) I also made labels for the scrapbooks so I would know which one was which. I took out Jake’s baby box (waste of space) and ordered cream colored document boxes to match the ones I already had.  That will give me 4 matching boxes (I KNOW. LEAVE ME ALONE!).  They’ll each have one for baby memorabilia and one for school papers I want to keep (like Jake’s first research project). As of press time, they hadn’t been delivered yet.

I hope you’ve enjoyed a little tour of my home kids’ art stuff! Be sure to visit Lara to see how other people handle their homes kids’ art stuff!