In a previous post where I talked about the changes I made to how I store my DVD collection, I mentioned that I am moving. With moving, I look around my house and realize how much "stuff" I have to pack, move, and unpack. It all seemed so overwhelming. With the housing market being as busy as it is in my area, I had a little longer than normal closing. I took full advantage of that. I started packing early to allow myself time to purge and get rid of things that I don't need to be keeping around.
I started with my closet and my dresser. I didn't allow myself wiggle room. I have this large wardrobe, but actually wear very little of it. If I haven't worn it recently, it was gone. This included those "skinny" clothes. My boyfriend said something that turned my opinion on holding on to these around. If you were to ever loose the weight, you'd want to go out and buy new stuff. So, off to donation it went.
The most recent thing I have gone through is all of the paper memories. These are things like cards, concert or movie tickets, pictures, etc. I am kind of a pack rat with these things because I use to scrapbook. I really enjoyed being able to keep those items to add as embellishments in my books. However, as I've gotten older, I find myself really liking to do the photo books from Picaboo.
I use Picaboo and make yearly books. I create one book for each year containing the pictures from that year. It's becoming really fun to see how each year builds throughout the months. I'd like to say I stay on top of it and continue to edit and add each month, but I'm not that good. I usually end up taking a few weekends at the end/beginning of each year to finish them off.
One really nice thing about doing the electronic books is that you can do re orders at any time. For example, I for the most part do one book for the whole year. But, if we have a big event during the year, like a big vacation or a wedding. I will sometimes make that it's own book. With having the book electronic, if someone else likes the book, I can order it for them. It's super handy!
Now, onto how I used this to help me de-clutter. Everyone has that paper stuff that you don't know what to do with. Birthday cards, anniversary cards, holiday cards, tickets... it goes on and on ...
My idea originally started when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with all of the holiday cards I had. I enjoy having them, especially ones with kids because it's nice to see how they grow over the years. However, I hated having to dedicate space to store them. And, lets be honest, how often do we really pull these out and look at them....?
What I decided to do, was take some time, sit down with my computer and scanner.... and scan off of this "paper stuff" to my computer as an image. Then, I can use the image in the book! When I specifically did this with the holiday cards, at the end of my yearly book I did a collage of all of the cards. Now, I will have them associated with the right year, have the memory, but now have to hold on to the actual card!
I have also done this with a few invites that I've gotten for weddings for this summer. I've scanned them, and now after they come off the fridge after the wedding, I'll still have the invite that I can use to decorate the page in the photo book when I do the wedding.
Super simple and long lasting!!
I was talking to a coworker who thought this was a great idea to do with kids stuff. She was talking about how she had struggled with what to do with all of the art and other paper stuff kids have. She has now started scanning things, artwork, pictures, school stuff, and other memories into pictures and making memory books. She said she still holds on to some hard copies, but this allows to chuck the stuff and still have the memory.
I don't have kids yet ... but definitely see me dong this in the future if I do!
The other really nice thing about hear photo books is that they are nice bound and if you stick with the same size book, they sit nicely on a shelf and looks super organized!
Not only does this help keep down the amount of "stuff" I hold on to, but it keeps the OCD in my happy!! And we all know, that's what matters! Ha!
