So I told you here about how I had spent much of the month of April sorting and purging in my Studio, and more specifically trying to corral and organize a lot of memorabilia. You were all suitably impressed with the progress I had made in pulling together piles, boxes, bags, and envelopes of "stuff" to come up with a single organized file box of photos, memorabilia, and art work from the first five years of life for each of my daughters. And I certainly appreciated the pat on the back, needed it in fact, because...
This is a photo of my memorabilia organization system (excluding the bit I just created as described above):
At one time I had three of these boxes FULL. One and a half of the boxes contained a folder each for grades K through 12 times three girls - yes, 39 folders of school photos and memorabilia. The rest were vacations and miscellaneous topics (weddings, newspaper clippings, scrapbooking events, etc.). And I was very proud of the fact that I not only diligently collected and appropriately stored all this STUFF, but that I actually used it in my scrapbooking! In fact, two full boxes worth have been moved into albums. Now admittedly, not all of the girls' school stuff has actually been scrapped, but it is in the albums ready to go when I have time to assemble pages.
So, as I was saying, I was busy cleaning and purging in my studio when I found a shopping bag FULL TO THE BRIM with memorabilia. It included Rachel and Becca's third grade school photos (which I had thought perhaps we didn't purchase when I couldn't find them in their school folders). It included a handful of miscellaneous stuff. But most of all, it included all of the brochures, ticket stubs, and stuff from our 2002 trip to Orlando when we visited Discovery Cove, Sea World, Universal Studios, and Kennedy Space Center. Do you see how thick that Orlando folder is now? (Rivaled only by Hawaii which I've avoided scrapping because I'm stuck in perfection mode where that one is concerned). And I was overcome with Scrapper's Guilt. Guilt that I hadn't ever properly filed these items. Guilt that since it wasn't properly filed, it obviously wasn't scrapped either! Ten years later and apparently that trip was never properly documented. Guilt that my girls' third grade photos almost never made it into their school albums! And now I'm wondering what else I might have tucked away somewhere that I've completely forgotten about...
Among the stuff crammed into that bag was this:
My pin vest:
I started collecting pins in the late 90's I think. I have the same vest (in child size) for each of my girls. The pins represent places we've been, things we've done, organizations to which we've belonged. Accordingly, no two vests have all the same pins. And much like Sian's scouting badges each and every pin on this vest has a story behind it. Pin collecting went out of vogue for our family when the girls hit their teens. We don't have pins for our trip to Hawaii (shame on me). I'm hoping years from now my girls will pull those vests out of their respective closets and be glad that they have a record (besides the scrapbooks) of so many memories from their young lives. As for me, now that I've rediscovered this treasure, I think I need to start collecting pins again!
For more Precious Stories visit Sian's Story Telling Sunday.
11 comments:
What a lovely way to remember your trips and adventures x
What a great idea, you definitely need to keep adding to this!
You are right, they are very like the scouting/guide badges ... sounds like you need to add a few more recent trips to that vest!
Wow, that looks amazing! Those girls are very lucky to have a Mum who works so hard to collect and keep the things they'll want to remind them in years to come. I do my best to keep up too, partly because my Mum never kept a thing ..no school reports or cards we made,or anything. So I'm the hoarder now. Your organisational system looks excellent
Love your pin vests - how cool. Both kids have some pins, mainly Disney and Cons. I'm impressed with your organisational set up - and you can scrap the 3rd grade photos now :)
Wow! I am seriously impressed that you have the things whether or not you know where they are, that you scrap so much and now look at that fabulously organised filing system! I am in awe in a glorious mess I call my desk this morning ;0
Oh goodness, I love how these stories prompt memories of my own. I no longer have pins on a vest, but I still have a box with all kinds of pins I earned for a variety of reasons. I'll be pulling it out now and inspecting them!
Oh my gosh - I had something similar. I wonder where it's gotten to???
Rinda
So cool that you found those third grade pictures! And if you could see how disorganized all of Carrie's school things are you would be SUPER proud of yours! And you had a couple more kids than I did. ;o)
LOVE the vest with the pins. Carrie and I each have pin strips that I made years ago, and we still collect pins where ever we go. Concert pins are always a must, and we did purchase some pins on our England trip as well. Cool "precious" post, Cheri!
Oh Cheri, what a wonderful find among that bag of memorabilia. (Must I remind you that there's no guilt in scrapbooking - it's found now & ready to be scrapped when the inspiration strikes, whether that's today or ten more years from now!)
The vest is wonderful with all those pins & memories in one place!
Love your pin vest! I have a whole bunch of pins I found from when I was a kid stashed at my mom's house when I went to retrieve all my stuff before our move to PA. Back in the day, I had them on my backpack, but now they're just in a box. I should definitely document them somehow. Thanks for the inspiration (as per usual)! BTW, THANK YOU for sharing the story about your shopping bag. You have no idea how much better this makes me feel about all of the bags and boxes I found after our move with stuff haphazardly thrown into them. I'd like to say all of it is finally organized, but... :)
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