It’s official – Marie Kondo has taken over the world, and I have to say, I’m pretty excited about it. I love the idea of only having things in your home that “spark joy”. Plus, nothing really beats the feel of having your home organized and knowing the things that are there, are there with intention. It’s all a very beautiful concept to me and the trend hit at a particularly perfect time for us since we just moved.

Things like a note or cards from my mom, special objects like a friendship bracelet or trinket from a fun trip. Anyone else get sentimental like this?

Historically, I would collect all of these special things throughout the year and then put them together in a box and they’d wind up in storage. So, although I’m keeping them, they don’t really get to live beyond being in a box somewhere. Because of the move, I’ve had the opportunity to go through all of my boxes, which has been super fun and has definitely sparked some joy for me, but I decided I wanted to do something different for Zelda and all of her “special things”.

 

 

 

 

Taking a note from Ms. Kondo, I decided to create something that was a bit more intentional. I knew I wanted Zelda to be able to access these memories and be able to spark joy at any time. So I thought about how I could do more than just throw them in a drawer while also making it aesthetically pleasing since they’ll be out in the open. How could I display them in a way that looked both beautiful and thoughtful (two key ingredients for sparking joy, in my opinion)? I found the answer in these clear acrylic drawers!

 

All I did was buy 10 of the drawers from The Container Store and stacked them on top of one another – so simple! Each box represents one year of Zelda’s life, so she has four boxes filled up so far. Now she has this perfect little curated vessel of happiness that lives on her wall unit in her room that she can access at any time.

My hope is that as she gets older she’ll cherish these memories and maybe look at them if she ever has a difficult day or her and I can sit down together and talk about things and reflect on sweet, happy times throughout her childhood. The goal is to curate one box a year until she’s 18 (ah, I can’t even think about her being that old!), so there will be tons of fun things to collect over the years.

If you’ve found yourself with lots of “special things” for yourself or your kids, I hope this is a solution that can spark some joy for you too!