Turning Clutter to Cherished Memories
I love when my children give me something they have drawn. The best thing is seeing their pride in what they created and right on the fridge it goes…..this is where the problem starts. Is anyone else like our family? We receive the school artwork, the artwork from home, papers they are proud of….times 3. My poor fridge can only hold so much. I will admit sometimes it gets torn, or taken down and in the trash some of it will go….the other artwork and best papers are stacked (somewhere).
I will tell you. We try so hard to keep up with it all. Lets be realistic….how are we supposed to unclutter when we keep having more “special clutter.” My job is to help families preserve what is special to them…. what is more important than the artwork from our children. My husband stopped me a few weeks ago and mentioned how he would love to preserve all the artwork…somehow. It was time to do something about it….but, Did I mention our fridge is only so big?
I believe the problem is now solved in two ways: 1. I now have a permanent place to store my children’s most important artwork without clutter and 2. when I am ready I can now have this artwork digitized and a nice book as a keepsake. That is a win-win in my book.
I could not be more pleased with these artwork frames I found. The frames are from amazon. I made sure to order one for each kiddo (we did order one more to balance the space we needed in our kitchen). The frames come in a few color options. Our walls are brown so I went with white to stand out more. The black looks great and also offers distinction between the mat and frame. The frames hold up to 50 pieces of artwork in each one. There are two straps that help to hold these in place. Just place the artwork you want to display in the front and you are good to go. The frames I ordered come in a pack of two. Here is the link for the artwork picture frames: https://amzn.to/3FAmKkI
Tips:
I am pretty picky about how I display my artwork. My only issue with the frames was that I did not want to stick tape on the back of the photos. As a photo organizer, I do not recommend tape…it yellows and becomes brittle over time or can tear or become sticky. I first tried the corner plastic photo tape, but it did not hold the photos in place very well. I wanted something that would be easy to switch out artwork (let’s face it kids are always drawing something new to show off). The perfect solution for us was the Archival tape. The tape was a tad too big so I cut it in half and put a piece at the top and bottom of the artwork. This seemed to work perfectly. Highly recommend using the Archival Mounting strips verses regular tape. Nothing sticky touches the photo but it does hold the paper in place. Here’s a link for the Archival Mounting strips: https://amzn.to/3ZYHwCT
The frames can be hung vertically or horizontally and easily open to change out artwork! I really cannot recommend this enough to help declutter your home, store your children’s artwork out of sight, and lay the foundation for creating something special in the end.
The final recommendation is turning all the artwork into a digital copy and having a memory book made of your children’s special creations to cherish. I am so excited about creating a special book to preserve and even hand out to grandparents as presents. Give us a call at Reclaimed Memories. We are happy to help you preserve these memories to help you turn into a special keepsake for your family and help you declutter your fridge and home in the process.
To book a consultation reach us by email: reclaimedmemories21@gmail.com or call us at 256-443-1769.
www.reclaimedmemories.net