For a long time I’ve been planning to do keepsake suitcases for my kids. Places to store some of their childhood items. I think suitcases fit well for a travelling family – they remind of the adventures that have happened and those that will happen. Plus the suitcases can look beautiful! I’ve now found a few and started to fill them.

Keep the best and let go of the rest

Picking out things can be slow if you have heaps of stuff and also if your mind easily wonders to the memories each item triggers. Besides kids’ objects like toys, clothes or crafts, you can also add your notes of things your kids have done or said (for example yesterday my 3-year-old said he likes cats because they like him and they don’t speak. One of my friends collects stickers from each place her son visits, and adds them to his suitcase, and I think that can make the whole thing even more complete.

The idea is also to let go off the stuff that doesn’t fit to the suitcase. Another challenge is in general to carve out time for the whole project but at least composing a keepsake suitcase is more gracious than for example making a baby book, as it can be done over time, little by little (and if the kids are bigger maybe also with more sleep and therefore more focus too). So many things are about prioritising. I try to remember Laura Vanderkam’s TED talk about free time in which she for example points out that ” ‘I don’t have time,’ often means ‘It’s not a priority.’ ”

Perhaps one day, when our kids have grown up and are moving out to try their own wings, they want to take the suitcases with them. And if not, that’s OK, as I’m happy to keep them too 😉