Birthday Cards.  How many birthday cards will you receive in a lifetime?  Let's do some math.  Let's say you start getting birthday cards on your first birthday and you receive an average of 10 cards a year.  And let's say you live to the age of 85.  That is 850 cards you will have accumulated just for your birthday.  That is a lot of cards to sit down and look back through as the years go on. 

Here are the facts.  Some of those birthday cards were bought in a 5 second buying frenzy because someone forgot it was your birthday.  Some cards were pored over and the perfect card picked out.  Some cards were handmade, meticulously for you.  Some cards were bought months in advance.  Not all of these cards can mean the most to you.  So how to decide what cards to keep?

• Cards from a particular person in a particular year are going to stand out. 
• Cards that have a personal note written in them are going to make the cut. 
• Cards that are particularly funny, thoughtful or meaningful will be worth saving. 
• Cards celebrating a particularly important birthday will be worth saving.

So, you have decided what cards to keep and what cards to not keep.  Now what?

     1. You can recycle the cards, you are not keeping, with paper recycle 

      Yes, you read it right.  It is not sacrilegious to throw away a greeting card!

       2. You can cut off the fronts of the cards, you are not keeping, and give them

       to a creative art teacher or a special ed. teacher.

       3.  The cards you are keeping can be filed in an accordion file or a file box   

       (pictures shown below) and filed according to the person that gave you

        the card, the year or the occasion.  

                      File Tote                             Banker's Box             Accordion File

Be free of excessive memorabilia and paper.  Only keep those birthday cards that make your heart sigh and your soul laugh! 

Here we are to the "biggie".....Holiday and Christmas Cards.  Christmas

Below I have listed 10 ideas of what to do with these cards:

1.  Many cards, that are not photo cards, can be sent to St. Jude's Ranch in Nevada.  This is a non-profit, non-sectarian home for abused, abandoned and neglected children. This is a link to their site St. Jude Ranch.

2.  Use the front, of the non-photo cards, to cut up and make tags for gifts.  Go ahead and get the cutting done and store the gift tags with the rest of your wrapping paper supplies. 

3.  Keep only the cards that mean the most, recycle the rest.

4.  If you don't want to keep the actual cards, that mean the most, scan them into your computer.  The memory will still be there, the paper won't!

5.  Use the front of the cards to send as a post card.  This is a great idea for a thank you note.

6.  Photo cards - save the pictures in a separate "Christmas Cards" Scrapbook.  Have several pages saved for one family so that you can add the next year's card or organize them by year. 

7.  Photo cards - if you don't want to save those actual cards, scan them into your computer and sort them by family.

8.  Donate the front of the cards to a preschool or elementary school teacher special education or an art teacher.  Make sure the teacher will use them and you are not using that person as a dumping ground.

9.  Some families like to keep the cards in a bowl in their family area, draw a card from the stack, each night and say a prayer for the family on that card.  Be careful that the cards really get used that way and they don't become a part of your clutter!

10.  Cut out the pretty part of the card and glue it to a brown kraft bag to make your own gift bags; something for those little ones to do during holiday break! 

Now, what do you do with the Christmas letters?

1. If you are the type that will go back and re-read each family's letter, then get 

a notebook and organize the letters by family or by year.  

2. Store the letters with each family's pictures. 

3.  Scan the family's letters and keep each family's letters in their 

own folder on the computer.

         Happy Anniversary Cards

          Thinking of You Cards

          Graduation Cards

          Thank You Notes

          Valentines Day Cards

                                                 Happy Easter Cards

                                                 Happy Mother's Day Cards

                                                 Happy Father's Day Cards

All of these cards are special and it is a very thoughtful gesture for someone to take the time to send a card for a special occasion.  Again, I am not suggesting getting rid of all of them but if you keep everyone of these cards, you are not going to ever find the time to sort out those cards that really meant something to you; the card that came at just the right time, said just the right thing, made your heart jump or your face light up. 

I have special cards, that have fed my soul, made me laugh or said something special, that I keep as a bookmark or in a spot for me to see so I can remember that bit of encouragement or the happy feeling I had when I read it.  Other cards are tucked away into my MEMORY box to one day look back on and remember those special moments. 

If you decide to keep a lot of the cards you receive, you can organize them several ways:

     1.  By Occasion

     2.  By Year

     3.  By the Person that Sent It

These items can be stored away in Archival boxes (photo below) if you want to preserve them for many years to come.

Remember, keeping a memory is useless unless you are going to revisit that memory again.  If it goes into the attic and never looked at again, then you have only saved paper.  

If you need any help in the de-cluttering process, call me and we will work through it together.  It will be a lot easier than you think!  

Peggy