Are you a sentimental mama who keeps a lot of your child’s drawings, handprints, first outfits, handwriting samples, and so on?

Don’t worry. I’m not going to convince you not to be sentimental and throw all those things away.

I am going to show you my decluttering methods and help you organize all those precious sentimental items hiding in random places all over your house.

I know you’re tired of the mess but it’s just hard purging sentimental things.

I want to help you get all those childhood sentimental items decluttered, sorted, and organized in a way that you can keep on enjoying those priceless items without them.

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Here is a great way to organize sentimental items!

If you are someone who is more sentimental and you find sorting through and decluttering sentimental items to be extremely difficult, let me tell you that you don’t have to do it alone.

I offer online decluttering sessions to help gently guide you through the decluttering process. After our time together, you’ll have the skills to continue on your decluttering journey. You will feel confident letting go of what’s not as important so that you can highlight what is in your home.

If you’d like to chat about how we can work together, email me at lisa@habitsandhome.com to grab a free 15-minute consultation. I would love to chat with you and get to know you better!

1. Decide on an appropriate size box.

When choosing a box to store your kids’ childhood sentimental items, keep in mind a few things.

• What is your child really going to want when he becomes an adult or a parent?
  
  
• What is a good amount of items to pass along to your adult children that won’t cause them overwhelm?
  
  
• How much space do you have to store sentimental boxes?

Once you can estimate how much you want to keep for your kids and one day pass along to them, purchase some storage totes that will be able to contain all those items in one place.

My favorite kind of tote is clear so you can see everything inside the box without having to get it off a shelf.

Also, try to store all the sentimental items in ONE tote. Having multiple totes for one person’s “treasures” can be burdensome to keep up with and create overwhelm for the person one day receiving their boxes.

By limiting what you keep to just one box, you will train yourself to only keep that which is MOST important.

2. Decide what earns its place inside the box.

Now that you have your totes or boxes, you need to decide the criteria for which items are going to be kept in the sentimental boxes.

If you have young kids and they have never had to throw anything away, it is going to be a little harder on them. I would still declutter WITH them so they get used to the process of decluttering what’s no longer played with.

You can listen to THIS episode for more encouragement to declutter with your children and for a step-by-step decluttering method.

Here are a few suggestions for what to keep in your kids’ sentimental boxes:

• Only one of the same item
  
  
• One handprint from multiple ages
  
  
• A favorite stuffed animal
  
  
• A couple of outfits from special occasions and ages
  
  
• Scrapbooks and albums
  
  
• Samples of handwriting from multiple ages
  
  
• A few first drawings and how they progressed
  
  
• Letters you’ve written to them
  
  
• Letters they’re written to you
  
  
• Journals or diaries that tell about their life

There are no rules about what exactly you should keep in your kids’ sentimental boxes but keep in mind that things that are rare are more valuable. Your kids will treasure a small number of sentimental items but be overwhelmed by too many.

Need help organizing your home?

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3. Decide where the box will be stored for easy access.

I recommend keeping your kids’ sentimental boxes easily accessible and in view. This is a working box meaning you will continually be adding new items to them as your kids grow. Some of the best places to store these boxes are the top of a closet or under a bed.

When these memory boxes are easily accessible, they can be enjoyed more often. My kids love going through their sentimental boxes, especially around their birthdays.

Keeping them in view will keep them front of mind and you are more likely to use them instead of the contents being in random places throughout the house. Your kids’ treasures are less likely to be misplaced.

Some of the best places to store these boxes are:

• top of a closet
  
  
• under a bed
  
  
• on a bookshelf
  
  
• a cabinet in the laundry room
  
  
• above the refrigerator
  
  
• in a home office or schoolroom

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I’d love to hear from you!

Do you have a system for keeping up with your kids’ sentimental items? Share what has been working for you.

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