End of the School Year

Last Thursday was the last day of 1st grade for my oldest daughter!  I can't believe she's already a 2nd grader! It all goes way too fast!

Before my daughter started Kindergarten I bought her an accordion file to keep her important papers together.  I thought it was cute and it would help me to organize and keep her special papers throughout school.   

Ours is similar to this except my daughters name is printed on it.

It was a great idea but the folder just doesn’t work for us.  I should have thought it through a little bit better before I bought it. 

Why it doesn’t work

• So far we have two years of “special” papers and drawings and it’s already full.  It is an accordion file but it doesn’t really expand that well.
• There is no cover which means things are curling and fading.

Picture is not of my actually file, but you can see how not a lot fits in them.

I am determined to figure out a better way to store these treasures so I can have them to display someday at her graduation or later on in life she can look back and revisit a little bit of her childhood.

My goal is to have a storage system in place before the start of the next school year.  What has worked for you?