Two Bins Into One: Memorabilia Decluttering, Part 2

Did you read the first part of my keepsake decluttering yesterday? I'm working on getting two bins of my oldest daughter's keepsakes down to one bin. I should specify that I think most of these items were keepsakes for me, but happened to be about my daughter. She was too young to pick these things as items to keep. At least in most cases. I kept many of these items because I was simply emotional attached or felt that these were things I needed to keep. 

The initial two bins to be decluttered

 After getting through the majority of the first bin and getting rid of 90 items, I was ready to move on to the second bin. On the top were three calendars. This one was dutifully filled out by me, putting stickers on the days of major milestones. What a good documenter (is that a word) I was! I've decided that since there is a baby book for my daughter I will see if these special dates are recorded in her book. If so, the entire calendar gets recycled. If not, I'll add them in...since it is so important to know at this point! (Yes, there is some sarcasm in that statement!)

In the second bin, we also found a feather! Anyone know what kind of bird that may be from? My daughter has no idea where it came from. My memory is that she found it on some outing with my mother and wanted to keep it. Eventually I stuck in the keepsake bin to keep it from getting ruined by a young child. Since my daughter is now an artist she did decide the pattern might be helpful for some of her work. So another item stays. 

I found at least three unused postcards that I plan to use this next semester to send some mail to my daughter. The cards themselves aren't really that meaningful or worth saving, but will be an interesting vehicle for a note. 

And you can all learn from me. You should not save art work your child made that contains food. The piece below had three goldfish crackers attached. The oil bleed on the paper and the fish are now dotted with something. Ick! And they didn't really break much, even after three moves!

I basically just went through the entire bin and made pretty quick decisions on each item. Keep or discard. I kept notes she wrote to us, or drawings that were especially cute. There is even a journal from one month of second grade I think that is so cute. I know at one point there was one for EVERY school month of that year. I was smart to keep just one. It's just enough of a memory without having stacks of them to wade through. I let go of planned crafts made in school and kept the free from stuff that was more of her own making. And there were MORE cards in the second bin. Nearly all of those have been recycled.

That's the full pile of recycling that came from the second bin. I would say this was at least half of what was in there. I counted all the items I recycled and came up with 85 papers and 20 greeting cards. Another 105 items leaving our home. And again, no regrets. Just more space and an empty bin!! 

I will say that I'm not super happy with just leaving these items in the bin. If these are truly keepsakes they should probably be stored differently. And possibly in a way that make them more accessible. For now, I'm not worried about figuring that out. And I'm also aware that I may still have MORE that could be removed from that one bin. But to have reduced these bins by half feels really good. It will be even faster next time I decide to reduce these particular keepsakes. 

I still have at least two or three bins for my youngest daughter to go through next. The keepsake purge will continue some day again soon! 

Year to date decluttering was 117. Now 222.