House of Order Tip

Two of My Tried and True Paper Tamers...
Papers....Papers...Papers....
They can run your life, they can take over your house, they can get out of control in one day...yes papers! Control the papers or they will control you!
The paper piles generated by school aged children alone will multiply and grow by the day. One day of not staying on top of the papers coming in to your house and bam...there is a mountain.
***After several ineffective methods of storing school papers and memorabilia, I am sold on using 12x12 Craft Keepers by Generations. One poly envelope stores an entire school year, if not, then some papers need to be purged. They come in fun colors or clear. I like to use a different color for each child, then I don't even have to pull it off the shelf to look at the name on the envelope. I store excellent papers, awards, school photos, special notes, report cards, etc. At the end of the school year, I go through the envelope and it is easy to purge a few extra things that were saved. Using a Sharpie Marker, I label the envelope with the child's name and grade. Also on the label, I include the name of the teacher(s) and any special events or activities that occurred during that school year (Baptism, soccer, 1st piano recital, etc.)

I purchased my Craft Keepers Envelopes at Michaels and at Target. Originally designed for The Scrapbooking Crowd, I have found another use for these great envelopes.

***Another effective method to store school papers is the 3-Ring Binder method filled with Page Protectors. This was excellent when I had Pre-schoolers with lots of projects that they enjoyed viewing over and over. I made a "Treasure Book" for them. The cut and paste projects go in a page protector and a book full of memories is created. This is fun for them to look at along with the reinforcing of a concept taught along with that specific project. My 8 and 10 year old daughters still enjoy getting out the books to look at their Pre School projects. An added Bonus....these books served as great "Idea Books" for me when I needed a quick project idea for the Nursery Children at Church or for an afternoon draft project at home.

Maybe you will use some of those scrapbooking supplies yet.... you may already have these envelopes and not know what to do with them....