Reducing Clutter: Take photos of and scrapbook your memorabilia

It has been a while since the last post – I truly didn't intend for it to be so long in between! We have been busy packing, and are up to our ears in boxes. Every day goes something like “wake up, sort through some belongings, pack some boxes, label boxes, shake head at how much stuff we still have despite our best efforts to pare down our belongings.” Lather, rinse, repeat. We are moving into a much smaller space than our suburban house, so we're having to make some tough choices about what stays and what goes. Today I thought I would write about reducing clutter since it's been at the front of my mind for weeks now.

I've realized that we keep things for many reasons beyond the practical or rational. We keep things even if they are not things we use or love. We keep items out of guilt, because they cost a lot or we were convinced it was a “must have” at the time. We guiltily keep objects that we've either inherited or received as gifts from loved ones even if they're not to our tastes. For many parents, the mountain of kids artwork is another example of guilty clutter.

In addition to streamlining my own belongings, I've been trying to convince my mother to part with some old cassette tapes that are taking up space in her house.  They are classical music tapes that relatives from overseas had sent us over 20 years ago. These are not the recordings of my brother and me (concerts, recorded music lessons, random talking) - those are going to be digitized so that we will have them in a form we can actually access and listen to - I don't even have a cassette player anymore!  But these tapes in question are just commercial recordings, without any real meaning to my brother or me. My mother however, associates these tapes with a specific time in life, and is reluctant to part with them.

Luckily, scrapbooking offers us a great solution: take pictures and scrapbook these items, and purge the clutter from our lives. Many times we are just holding on to the memories associated with these items, and we don't actually love the items themselves. Scrapbooking the story behind these items allows us to let them go.

Here are some tips for scrapbooking some common things we keep out of guilt:

Kids artwork: Decide on a certain number of special pieces to keep, with your kids' input. For the remaining artwork, tape it on the wall or set it on a table in a well lit room (natural light is best) and take pictures. Have kids help you write about what the artwork is about and when they made it.  Toss the artwork soon after, or the perceived importance of the item may keep building and it will become much harder to let them go!

Inherited objects: Again, don't toss anything you love that fits your tastes, but consider parting with the objects that you keep only out of guilt or attachment to the memories imbued in them.  Photograph anything you decide to part with, and make a layout (maybe with a photo of the loved one you inherited the items from) that captures the memories that you have of your loved ones with the objects in question.  Sell these items, and treat yourself to a new thing that you love (like a new piece of artwork or that great scrapbooking tool you've been eyeing).

I am hoping to keep these ideas in mind even after the move.  I'm loving the idea of simplifying and periodically culling out unnecessary or unloved objects from my life and making space for the things that I do love, use, and enjoy.  Hopefully this will also mean less hair pulling when it's time for the next move...