The Clutter Fairy Weekly #167
Irreplaceable: Managing Family Photos, Heirlooms, and Memorabilia
Photos, heirlooms, and other mementoes can strengthen family ties and help us connect with our history. But many of us inherit or accumulate these precious items as a seemingly random, unsorted, unlabeled, and uncurated mess. In episode #167 of The Clutter Fairy Weekly, Gayle Goddard, professional organizer and owner of The Clutter Fairy in Houston, Texas, offers strategies for managing family photos, heirlooms, and other “priceless” memorabilia.
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The Weekly Tittle is an exercise designed to focus your attention on a specific space, aspect, or challenge of decluttering and organizing your home. We assign a new tittle in each webcast/podcast, then check on your progress the following week.
One from the Vaults
This week’s assignment is to evaluate an item from the “irreplaceable” category of your stuff:
- Select a family heirloom item that you possess solely because someone handed it down to you.
- Make as objective and honest an assessment as you can of the item’s value. Does it have a real monetary, historical, or documentary value?
- If the item’s only value is sentimental, consider whether you might be ready to let it go by giving it to another family member, donating it, or taking a few photos, then disposing of the item itself.
- If you don’t have any objects that fit this tittle, your alternative assignment is to spend a work session managing your photo collection using the principles we discussed in this week’s webcast.
For the full discussion of this week’s tittle, watch the Weekly Tittle segment on YouTube.
I inherited a chest of drawers from my parents that both my husband and I love. In the top drawers we also got some things from my grandparents. These things are solely here because they were handed down to us. Since the myth of the “whole set of the dozen” has been busted (loved the episode when you discussed this) we decided to donate some of the linen napkins. They don’t have any monetary value, but as soon as we put anything made out of linen on the donation shelf, it’s instantly picked up, so we know other people want it. We still have some of them, maybe we will go through them again some day. There is now more space in the top drawer and it looks better that way.
I take this opportunity to report back on an old tittle, from November 2022. I then wrote a list of all my unfinished projects. I was able to write down a whopping 27(!) projects on the list. I decided to come back to the list now and then as a reminder, and to take stock again in 6 months, which I did today. I have now 5 projects that I am still working on, I have finished 13 of them. The remaining 9 projects are abandoned and the materials have been donated. This has been a great help. Lots of love to Gayle Ed and all participants!
May 23 2023 Tittle!:
I have a round, antique mirror mounted on old-oak wood and adorned by three generations of GrandMothers jewelry, glass buttons, kids honor badges, spouses war medals and so on. Multiple layers of monetary value includes gems, gold, silver through historic value created by events and age i.e approx. 170 years old. I have coveted this Family Heirloom for 30+ years myself. Now I feel it’s time to pass it on….Uh Oh!. 2 Granddaughters AND 2 Great granddaughters want it. Sooo How would one cut this mirror into 4 parts? I have tried to figure it out. Really great Tittle this week Gayle/Ed and all for I finally cleared the room it hangs in. Perfect timing…yet now what? Marsh.
posted…
May 23 2023 Tittle:
Huh…My last part of my Tittle just disappeared…Again, this is perfect Tittle=timing for I cleared the room and now see the mirror hanging on the wall.
Any ideas of how to share this Family heirloom into four parts would be appreciated.!
After years of confusion about what to do with family keepsakes, I followed the Clutter Fairy’s advice and tried to approach these sentimental items with a more practical mindset in the hopes of coming up with some guidelines for what I would keep. I decided that for most people and important events in my life, photographs were my favorite keepsake and so I spent some time editing the photos down to a reasonable number, digitized them and sorted them into digital albums on my iPad. It is very enjoyable to look through them now and easy to share them with others.
I then realized that for some very special people in my life, I enjoyed having a physical memento in addition to the photos. I decided that size matters, so the item would need to be small, and that it needed to be either in use or on display, not stored away. I took inventory and realized that for the people I had in mind, I already had an item or two in use or on display. I pulled out the boxes of stored keepsakes, which were clearly not my favorites, took a few photos of things and then let that stuff go. Thank you to the Clutter Fairy community for all the good ideas and encouragement.