25+ Tips For Managing Your Memorabilia

If you feel overwhelmed when it comes to managing your boxes of memorabilia and old photos, we have some great advice for you.

We have asked several professional organizing and photo organizing colleagues for their best advice to help preserve your memories and honor your past while not being inundated by too much clutter.

You Aren’t Throwing Away Grandma

Letting go of something doesn’t mean you will forget the person who gave it to you! Just that you’d rather treasure the memory than keep a thing. – Adriel Brophy The Orderly Manor

Capture the Story

One of life’s tragedies is the lost link with ancestors. Label the pictures you keep, better still keep them in a book format, with a story, so that down the road they will be meaningful to later generations. – Carolyn Caldwell of Caldwell Evolution

Don’t forget to write down the story behind it! So often we have heirlooms that get stored but not shared. Make sure future generations understand why it was important enough to save! – Caroline Guntur of OrganizingPhotos.net

So often, the story is the most important (valuable) part of memorabilia. It might be just a plain old shirt or serving dish, but if the story that makes it special to your client is preserved (and I like to do that with a picture of them holding, wearing, or using the item) then that makes it more special to future generations. Sometimes just documenting the item and the story is enough, and sometimes it makes it special enough to keep the item around. For example, my parents have a wooden chair that’s kind of plain and not super comfy or useful. But we know it’s the Evans chair, and that it’s been in our family for almost 200 years. My dad knows who made it, and who had it in their homes, the whole way down. By itself, the chair would get sold through an antique auction, but now with the story attached, it’s one of the most special pieces our family has. – Kathy Rogers of Photo Organizing Coach

Writing or telling someone the story behind the memory. Preparing to do a ritual around being able to let go and Keeping the best of the best. – Kim Tremblay of Space for You

Set Limits

Limit the space in which you store them if they are not displayed and review them annually to be sure you get the same emotional reaction you did last year. Over time our feelings can change and certain items are not as relevant to us as they were. – Audrey Cupo of A Better Space

My best advice is to 1) set ground rules and limits up front for how much “real estate” you are willing to devote to memorabilia storage in your home, and 2) honor your memorabilia by incorporating it into your daily life and/or displaying it in meaningful ways. – Natalie Gallagher of Refined Rooms

Store & Scan Kids’ Artwork

Store kids’ artwork carefully from the moment it comes in the door so it doesn’t get ruined. Separate it from household paper clutter, and display it for everyone to appreciate. Dynamic Frames are a great way to do this, keeping those masterpieces safe until you are ready to turn them into a digital album. – Darla DeMorrow of Heartwork Organizing

Any artwork with large white background is not going to scan very well. Photograph anything that is too big to scan with even light. Don’t hesitate to crop children’s art when you make a book to direct the eye. – Isabelle Dervaux of Isabelle Dervaux, Photo Organizer

I find a lot of parents (moms especially) want to keep their children’s art throughout the year. I suggest a display area for their favorite things that can be rotated and then a holding spot where they can put everything they “might want to keep”. The end of the school year is an ideal time to sit down with them and go through that year’s stuff, writing the year on the back of items they want to keep and adding any special memorable info. This is a great time to also snap photos and put them into a digital folder for the school year and possibly print a book! (then you may not need to keep the originals) Then not only are you only keeping what you love but you are able to look back and spark those memories with small cues (like dates, occasions, etc). – Heather Powell of HK Power Studio

Andi’s Note: You can also scan the artwork and display it in a digital frame like the Nixplay, one of my favorites. Learn more about the Nixplay family of digital frames here.

Ask Yourself These Questions

I always ask- do you want the item or the memory of the item? If it’s the latter, will a picture of it suffice? – Christina Hidek of Streamlined Living

I tell my clients and live by this question while looking at memorabilia: Does this item bring me happy memories when I look at it? If it doesn’t, I suggest getting rid of it. – Sabrina Quairoli of Sabrina’s Organizing

It’s important to know why you’re keeping the item. I ask my clients to keep things that have real meaning to them. Sometimes things lose their significance. It’s a good idea to sort through the memory box periodically to remove those items & add in the ones that are now meaningful. – Diane Quintana of DNQ Solutions

For each item you are considering saving, ask yourself if your Mom had saved a particular item for you, would you appreciate it now? – Bonnie Shay of Mariposa Photo Organizing

5 more questions to ask yourself about your memorabilia

Downsize and Display

I take photos of anything bulky or oversized and find a way to put those photos into my digital photo books. If I’m lugging home lots of brochures and items from a trip, when I create my photo book (if digital), I scan in a colorful, representative sample of those printed keepsakes, use the details from the brochures in my journaling, and then recycle the brochures when I’m done. – Amy Hoogervorst of Photo Organize Me

Your family will not value what they cannot see. Memorabilia becomes just “old stuff” to your kids, and they will throw it away when you are gone. – Debbie Pendell of Down Pineapple Lane

Focus on Quality

Focus on quality over quantity: Save a representative sample of each year. – Bonnie Shay of Mariposa Photo Organizing

Honor your Memorabilia

Honor these precious items by displaying them, using them, re-purposing them (e.g. sew a pillowcase or a quilt using shirts, etc). Or take a picture and give them away. – Chantal Imbach of Simply In Order

Honor your favorite keepsakes by using them and displaying them. The rest is clutter. – Hazel Thornton of Organized For Life

Preserve those irreplaceable memories in a format that you can enjoy – daily! Books, photo albums, framed (traditional and digital) – Teri Winfield of Legacy Photo Services

Let It Go

If the item doesn’t bring you joy, true joy let it go. The item(s) don’t define the relationship. That way the items you do keep have more meaning and you have more space to actually display them and enjoy them. i.e. You don’t need 20 pictures of the same place, person, time to keep the memory. Keep your favorites and toss the rest. – Rachel Murphy of Simplify My Life

Andi’s Note: My dad passed away in 2009 from a glioblastoma (brain tumor). When he went through radiation, he had a mask made that kept his head still during the procedure. When the radiation treatments were done, he gave the mask to my son because, in all honesty, it really did look cool…like something out of a sci-fi movie. But after his death, for over a year I would see that mask in the top of my son’s closet (he wasn’t really interested in it), and it made me incredibly sad. Finally, I tossed it in the trash. Why keep something that only brought back terrible memories? I’d rather remember the good times.

Show And Tell

One of my clients did this and I loved the idea. As she was sorting decades of memorabilia, she set some of it aside to do as a “show and tell” with her children. After she showed the physical items and shared stories about the objects, she was able to let them go. – Linda Samuels of Oh So Organized

Proper Storage

Remember that clothing you are keeping for sentimental reasons doesn’t need to live in your closet. Keep it in a safe space, but out of your main dressing area. – Seana Turner of The Seana Method

What is your favorite way to honor your memorabilia?

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