Keeping Cards & Other Stuff

I'm in the process of re-organizing and cleaning out my stuff because it is starting to take over my house. So, I thought I would seek your advise on what you do with all the other stuff (cards, letters, memorabilia, etc)that may not make it into your scrapbooks.

For example, I probably have around 12 cards for each of my sons three birthdays. Now granted he's only three, but this is just the tip of my collection iceberg.

Should I save them in another box and keep them forever, should I include them in his scrapbook (this would make for a huge book), or should I throw them out?

I'm thinking that I should pick a few from each year and put them in his actual scrapbook and the rest I should save.

I would appreciate your thoughts on this.

Patti...by all means, keep all the birthday cards. My son is 40, and I've kept most of his cards to me as well as cards he received. I kept all report cards, scholastic tests from school, award certificates, ribbons, his little notes to me, some school work, and now they are in his albums. He loves it that I cared enough to save these things for him and his children. My grandchildren love to look at Dad's report cards and school work. These things are priceless. Put them in albums, even if you end up to 50 for each child. What treasures these things are. Happy scrappin'.

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Scrapper Sue

Make a pocket page and put the cards in there. If you have too many (and 12 doesn't seem likee a lot) you could seperate them into 2 or 3 different pockets. For examplee cards from family, from friends, from family friends, so on and so forth.

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Meggie:
A person who always strives to do her best-

Sue,
Did you scrap the cards onto pages or put the in pockets?

Meggie,
I started out with pockets, and his album immediatley doubled in size when I added all the cards(birthday, Easter, Valentines, St Patty's, Halloween, etc). I didn't particularly like them because they cause the rest of the pages to not lie flat. Maybe multiple pockets is the answer.

Thanks for answering, I really appreciate the help.

[This message has been edited by Patti H (edited 05-30-2001).]

Let's assume it becomes impractical to keep all the cards. There are a few things you can do:

1. scan the cards and save them on disk.
2. use a color copier and shrink the cards down so several fit on a page.
3. keep the ones from special people - you never know when you might lose a relative or friend - and throw the rest away.
4. cut out the sections where people wrote on them.
5. this isn't necessarily about keepsakes, but when I get a card (any kind) I check it for usable poems, phrases, etc., and enter it into a database for later use.

Hope that helps!

I agree that you should hang on to the cards. I recently got boxes of my things from my mom's attic and had tons of birthday/Christmas cards from the past.

I spent an entire afternoon going through all of them.....laughing and crying over some. I haven't figured out how to use these in my scrapbooks (if I ever manage to go back and get my childhood albums done!)yet. But for now I'm keeping them in the photo boxes, sorted by year (if possible). I bought several boxes at Michael's when they were on sale.

At the very least, keep the ones from family members and special friends. I love reading the messages my great-grandmothers always wrote in my cards (those would be the ones causing the tears!).

Elisa

My family sends lots of cards to my kids. I keep about 2-3 cards per event (like birthday) If i don't use them in the layout (pretty rare that i do) i put them in a box in each of their closets. Just a plain shoebox, for them to sort thru someday.

I do think its important to keep a few, cards change over time (style etc) and i find it facsinating to look thru cards from my mother's childhood.

Patti: I put the cards in pockets so they could be removed. Many of them had handwritten notes from great grandparents that make them so important as part of my son's family history.

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Scrapper Sue

I have a container for each family member where I keep things like cards and letters. I be sure to date them when the cards come to we know what year they're from and the way I decide whether to keep or toss is by what the card says. If I think it's encouraging I definitely hold on to it as I know we all need encouragement in our lives. Cards from people who are getting old I tend to also hold on to because I never know if it'll be the last card from that person and I know I enjoy seeing the writing of people.

Sorry for the delay, it's been a really busy week.

Thanks for all the great answers. I decided to put them in his scrapbook. Some cards I mounted on card stock and some I put in various pockets. Turns out it was a great idea even though it meant moving half his pages to a new book. My son loved seeing all his cards when he went through his scrapbooks yesterday. He actually prefered the pockets, he likes to take them out and have me read them to him. It never occured to me to ask him.