Storing kids' art and backing up your computer

Recently my mom gave me a huge box where she had stored all of my art projects, books, programs, letters and notes from childhood. I enjoyed going through them and had quite a few laughs.

Anna and Kimberly have already started doing some 'art' at school and I was never sure where to store it. I don't want a lot of papers accumulating and I know the pile will only get larger, but I also don't want to chuck everything in the garbage and never see it again.

I decided to continue with my past post about going paperless and I found another use for my scanner: saving the girls' art projects! I created a folder for each girl and within them separate folders for each year, and I've started compiling all of their art in digital form by scanning them into my computer. This way I don't have to hold on to all of the individual pieces, only a few that I want to display. I'm thinking that I will compile all kinds of art, notes, certificates (the nice thing about scanning is that you can shrink larger papers down into smaller picture files) and other sentimental tokens and put them into a large photo book down the road. Wouldn't it be fun to have a nice book to look through down memory lane instead of piles and piles of papers!

Here are some examples of art I've already scanned. Be sure to organize them by date so you know he child's age at the time:

 

 

 

 

When you start storing important documents on your computer you always run the risk of losing them. I highly recommend getting a good backup system on your computer. You want one that backs up continuously rather than requiring you to back up manually. I've tried several and the one I've been most happy with is Backblaze. It's super easy and is constantly backing up your files without slowing down your computer too much. If you were to lose anything on your computer they would send you a zip drive with everything on it. It's about $50 a year for the service. A small price to pay for piece of mind (if you want to sign up,  you can get a free month).