All right.
So we are talking about how to organize sentimental papers today.
We are going to be talking about artwork, greeting cards, some photos, letters, newspaper
articles that maybe you were mentioned in, and any other papers that you just feel emotional
when you look at them.
We're talking about how to organize them today.
What we are not talking about is how to let go of sentimental items, including sentimental
papers.
That is a whole nother topic.
I recently did a class on how to let go of clutter when you cannot let go and I shared
a very simple five step process to getting yourself to mentally, to emotionally be able
to physically detach and let go of things that feel sentimental that you are holding
onto.
If you would like more support in that area, there is a link below to check it out.
Okay, so when it comes to organizing sentimental papers, I have this box right here.
So first off I would recommend finding one box to keep sentimental papers and any small
sentimental items.
So when I say one box, one box per person in your family.
So if there's four people in your family, then you would have four boxes.
So this box I found recently.
I love it.
It's pink, it's soft.
It has flowers on it, and it just feels like love and warmth and tenderness, and so I thought
it was perfect for sentimental papers.
So let me go ahead and share with you what is inside here.
Okay, so let's talk about artwork first.
So I have artwork saved in this yellow envelope that just has a pink label that says artwork
right here.
So inside here I have artwork from when I was a child.
My parents saved a couple things.
My parents saved a couple things, and then I have artwork from my grandfather.
My grandfather used to paint pictures.
I have some things from my nephews and niece that they've made me inside here, and the
biggest thing is not to save everything, but just save your favorite pieces, and then as
hard as it is, just let go of the rest or pass it on to other family members that don't
have as much artwork.
So that's inside there.
Now if you have 3D artwork, things made out of paper plates, pom poms, Popsicle sticks,
and you don't want to hold onto the things but you want to save the memory, you could
always snap a photo of the artwork and then upload all the photos to a photo book, something
like this right here that I just created.
This doesn't have artwork, but this is from my grandma's 80th birthday.
My sister and I made her a photo book, and you just take photos and you insert them into
pages and stuff and it's just such a great way to condense the volume of stuff into one
flat book that doesn't take up a lot of space.
All right, so that's an option as well.
So let's talk about greeting cards.
Now I do want to show you one thing.
So a great way to organize sentimental papers, like what I'm sharing today is in these portfolios
that I'm going to share right now.
So these portfolios are so great.
I'll talk about the reason why.
They fit nicely into this plastic tote.
It's a plastic file tote.
I will put links to all these products in the description of this video.
Okay, so let's talk about greeting cards.
So in this portfolio, this one is labeled love because it has all kinds of letters and
greeting cards that are from loved ones and stuff, and so I feel love when I read them
and look at them.
So what's cool about these portfolios is you can customize the spine.
So it comes with an insert.
You just take the insert out and you put your own scrapbook paper and then you just put
your own label right here, and it just feels really nice and organized.
All right, so greeting cards.
So what I've done here is I've only saved the inside of the greeting card, because what
I care about in the greeting card is the message the person writes, and it's nice to see the
person's handwriting as well.
So I just saved the inside, and something else you can do with greeting cards, while
we are talking about greeting cards is you can also ... if you don't want to store them
inside these portfolios, you can also store them on a binder ring just like this.
All you do is you punch a hole in the corner and you put it on the binder ring and now
they are nice and together.
So that's another way to do that, or another way to organize greeting cards is inside of
sheet protectors.
So if you've been a professional organizer for awhile, you might have seen these things
10 years ago.
They are sheet protectors that just open.
So here's the front of the card, you open it, you can see the inside, and then you can
see the back.
So they are really cool.
They also fit really nicely inside of these mini binders that looks like these two things
were just made for each other.
So that's another way to do greeting cards.
What else you can put inside of these portfolios is letters.
So I had a letter from my grandma.
I just went ahead and taped it inside with the envelope that has her handwriting and
her old address label.
That felt special to me.
Something else you can do is you can paste in or tape in any newspaper articles.
So maybe someone in your family was written up in the local newspaper.
That can go in there as well.
Just so many things you can do with these portfolios.
I won't show you everything, but I will show you a couple more things.
For example, so when I was a child, my parents saved all my report cards and that felt special
to me, now as an adult going back and looking at everything.
So what I did was I only saved the final report cards from each year and then I put them in
here, and what's so crazy is that these report cards, they still smell the same way they
smelled on report card day.
So when I was organizing them, I smelled them and I was like "Wow, it feels like you know
the report card is coming in the mail and just that scary feeling of whatever grade
you got."
So smell is so important when it comes to recalling memories.
It's actually the strongest sense for bringing back all those memories.
I found that when I was doing research and just thought that was so interesting, and
so something else you can do is you can put in awards or certificates from work or anything.
I received this last year.
So anything from work, personal, childhood, your kids' certificates can go in there as
well.
Okay.
So something else you can do is use poly envelopes just like this for organizing stuff.
So when I organized this box, I wanted it to be I can show family, I can show friends,
we can laugh, we can cry together, and then there was a couple things that I felt like
were private, like letters I wrote to myself, poems from when I was a kid.
So I went ahead and I found an opaque poly envelope just like this where you can't see
what's inside, and so it just feels private.
This is from the dollar store.
I just randomly stumbled upon that in the car aisle.
All right, so something else you can do is you can organize photos inside of these small
portfolios.
So these portfolios come in 22 different sizes.
So definitely a wide range.
So what I started doing was organizing photos from childhood.
I have not finished, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to categorize all the photos
and then put all the different categories in these different portfolios.
Again, you can customize the spine, you can label the spine.
This is one from my dog as a child.
I just have all the photos of my dog as a kid and that feels fun to go through, and
then also in here, I just have ... these are not obviously papers, but just sentimental
things that are small.
And if you can use the stuff around your house, like if you have a picture, instead of putting
it in a photo album in a box, frame the picture.
If you want to frame the award, frame the award.
By all means, use the stuff, display this stuff.
This is really stuff that is not displayed in the house.
I have other sentimental stuff displayed.
So these are other random sentimental things that I have.
This is tape from my grandparents' house that still smells like my grandparents' house decades
later.
It just feel so special.
Okay, that's that.
I have my high school diploma in here.
So what I love about these little portfolios is that they are archival quality.
They have this black mounting paper inside of each of the sheets that is acid-free.
There's also something in the plastic here that will preserve your photos longer and
any documents that have ink or toner on them so they won't get stuck in the pages, and
so they're just meant to store things longterm inside here.
All right, and so one of the last things I have here are letters.
So these are letters from when I started filming organizing videos, just so many nice kind
letters of gratitude.
I've saved all of them and I will one day make a photo book, but for now that is a whole
nother project.
So for now they just hang out right here.
And so one of the last things I have ... well this is the last thing I have in here is a
letter.
So obviously there's no letter on the side.
The letter is on this side, but this is a letter to whoever inherits this box.
So whoever inherits this box, they're probably going to have a really hard time getting rid
of the stuff if the person is close to me because it's all personal, it's all sentimental,
it's all emotional.
So this is a letter giving the person who inherits the box permission to let go, do
whatever they want with the box.
They don't have to feel bad.
The reason I wrote it is because I know how hard it is to let go of sentimental items,
especially if you inherit them from someone in your family.
I hope you enjoyed this video.
Again, if you are struggling to let go of sentimental items, I've put together a very
simple five step process to get you to mentally, to emotionally be able to detach from the
possessions so you can easily move forward.
I will put a link below if you feel like you need more support in that area.
Thank you for being here and I look forward to seeing you in an upcoming video.
Take care.
Bye bye.