My wonderful Stepdaughter is always giving me little things she made or found. I love receiving them, as they are her treasures and of course her way of giving. I try to keep most of them, the cute pictures or letters I have put in a special box to scrapbook and save. However, I am quickly amassing a huge collection of rocks, shells, sticks, little beads etc. What do I do with them? I never want to turn away one of her gifts, but I can't keep everything!
I threw a few of the rocks, acorns and sticks away but I felt sort of guilty like I was throwing away her presents. I'm pretty sure she isn't going to know. I proudly display the most recent gifts either on the refrigerator or on the counter for a little while and bring them to my room. At that point they were getting shoved in a drawer but now the drawer is getting full!
What do you do?
You can start to take pictures of some things and each year make a photo book. This could even involve your step-daughter. Explain that while you can't "keep" everything you can remember everything.
NW,
For the rocks & nature-type stuff, you could start a rock garden by your back door. As the collection grows, you could expand, but it'd be a nice way to save the stuff and not bring in bugs & dirt. :) I did that with my boy who was an avid fossil collector. Sadly they were lost in a move, but it was fun to have that rock garden & to watch it grow.
D.
For my daughter's drawings (anything that is paper & flat), I made my own portfolio for them. I learned to make these portfolios in my high school art class.
You need 3 pieces of poster board, any color or colors you like. A stapler, and 2" wide masking tape.
Lay 2 of the poster boards lined up on top of each other. This is the main portion of the portfolio. You will be stapling 3 sides together, so that the portfolio is a landscape orientation. (At the end, you will staple left, right, & bottom, leaving the top open.) Fold the 3rd piece in half, with the fold down the longest length. Lay this over the other 2 pieces so that the top of the 2 (the section that will be left open) is at the fold. Staple all 3 pieces together, but only staple through one half of the piece that is folded. This will leave a flap to close the portfolio.
On the back you will have to tape the open edge that goes across the middle. This closes up a smaller "pouch" created by the poster board that was folded in half.
If you'd like, you can also put tape over all of the stapled edges, folding the tape so that one half is stuck to one side of the portfolio and the other on the other side.
I hope that wasn't too confusing... lol But it's a lot cheaper than buying a portfolio! And your stepdaughter can color the outside of it!
My son used to bring home new art every day from school. I have learned to put it in one storage box and every 6 months or year or so I go through it and clean it out. One day my son asked what I was doing and helped me. He was so judgmental about his work when he was a toddler! I keep only the best items and have a specific volume I am "allowed" to keep. So I have to be very discerning with my selections.
Good luck!
S.
What a sweet stepmom!
I have to admit that I don't keep the sticks, dandelions, etc. It never even occurred to me! But I love it that you are trying. One thing I am saving their rocks for is to make cement stepping stones (you can buy the forms at Michaels - then just buy the quickset cement to make additional stones.) I will have the kids put press the rocks into the stepping stones (and write their initials and the year in the cement). They also have rocks from our various vacations, so we've got pounds of them by now!
Do you have a backyard or a little porch? What if you pick a special box and put the outsideables outside. If you can't put everything you could put them in a tupperware thing outside. She will forget them eventually. You could still rotate the things that are hangable on the refrigerator.
