I'm an artist. I wish I had some of the artwork I did as a child. I don't blame my parents, we moved so many times and it seemed like my production would never end and then I was grown up.

My mother was like yours and now I have trunks full of clothes that my sister and I wore when we were girls. I remember wearing them and can't bear to throw them away, but what to do with them?

I also have Fisher Price toys from my sons' childhood that my grandchildren have played with at my house and now at least one of my five grandchildren have expressed a desire to have. So I'm glad I kept them.

My grands are teenagers now. I am waiting hoping that they might be more interested when they have children of their own.

Bleusblue2, DD's artwork is one of the things that I've been thinning down- trying to keep some good examples, but like you, she was very productive at times :) I can see that being an artist, it would be really cool to have some early examples to look at.

junco East Georgia, I feel somewhat fortunate that my mother did not save much in the way of clothes. She did save one baby dress that was a gift; there is a picture of me in it as a baby. Later, I put it on my DD and took a pic of her, though the dress is still pretty, it felt weird. But clothes are one of the things that I am guilty of hanging onto for my DD, and have slowly been letting go, thinking that styles/fabrics change, and it makes much more sense to pass them on to other kids who can use them, rather than store them and... do what with them?

It's also funny that you mention Fisher-Price, because that is one of the very few things that came from my past, that DD played with and we will likely save. The decals are seriously worn from years of use, but they are still Fisher-Price and fun, even after 40 years.

I have a couple stuffed animals. A jean jacket that my mother painted on from when I was a toddler, and a quilt she made me and one that a neighbor lady made me. I also have a tupperware salt shaker, and a sears and roebuck suction pencil sharpener. I have the family silverware. I have my baby book with the cards I got when I was born. I have other cards and letters that I got from family members when I was a kid. I have the blanket I bought when i went away to college, and the blanket my mom was using when she died. I also have a Fisher Price Tell-Time clock music box. I had one, lost it, and found one at a thrift store and treat it like the one I had my whole life. I have an antique pay phone that was part of my dad's collection. That's the little stuff. I also have a cedar chest that once was my toy box, now my coffee table. I have my dresser from childhood, and I have the family dining table that I have eaten from my entire life. That's not bad considering my parents are both gone and they used to collect stuff at auctions. The items have been edited once before, and then divided between my brothers and me. So what I have, I will likely never part with.

I still have my favorite books, but not much else. I've moved around a lot.

Other than the photos (of course), I have a few stuffed animals (and will probably only retain one after the downsizing that will happen over this next 4-6 weeks). I also still have my childhood sled, which if I can find the right buyer, I'll part with. (It needs a new rope but otherwise in perfect condition). Either that, or I'll name it Rosebud... As for books, the only childhood one I have is something way out of date, an astronomy book entitled "The Sun, the Moon and the Stars", which has cemented my lifelong love of astronomy and of sciences in general. I have the three childhood Barbie dolls, but I will be parting with them.

but it seems like the memory is often in much better condition than the toys actually were.

This is so true! I nearly "lost" a wonderful memory because of this.

When I was a little girl, I helped with a skit as an ending to a performance by a barbershop quarter of high school boys (my dad as a drama coach, and helped them with it--I was the "love interest" at the end of "What Ain't We Got, We Ain't Got Dames"--not something you'd make jokes about now, though.

I was a little bit in love with all of them, but especially curt. (I was, oh, 6.)

After the contest was over, the boys got together and bought me a purple bunny with yellow satin lining in his ears, and Curt (swoon!) brought it for me. I LOVED that bunny. Loved it. Slept with it, carried it everywhere. Kept it around as I got older.

At some point he ended up in a box in the attic. And when I was a young adult, out on my own, my mom & dad sent me all my stuff from the attic, including my stuffed animals.

They were really in a sorry state--misshapen, coarse, and dirty. Their present-day reality pretty much overwrote my wonderful memories of them from when they were lovely (or, loved and their misshapenness completely invisible because of it).

I have a few things I treasure:

-the license plate w/ my unusual first name that my grandparents had custom-made for me

-the cloth doll that "my little old lady down the block" gave to me, and I used to create a room design that won a red ribbon at the Iowa State Fair.

-the "Night Before Christmas" book that I was given as a kid, and read from every Christmas

-the printed velvet vest that my mom made for me (part of a set, but I accidentally ruined the skirt); I could wear it up until relatively recently.

My mom kept some baby clothes (I have my dad's baby dress!), so I've hung onto them. And added a couple of blankets or a dress that was in a photo.

The hard part is the kids' toys. I'm still storing that out with them.

I was going to say I have nothing from my childhood, but reading this thread made me recall that my mother gave me a valuable Japanese painting of a tiger that my grandmother owned. One of the very few things she saved from her dowry even through the Japanese-American internment camps.

Since we have no children, I've debated what to do with it. I may give it to one of my cousins, who is an artist and might appreciate passing it on to his kids.

One of my current possessions is four books that are part of an amazing old set of children's books published in the US from 1896 to 1902. Each book had a different focus: one had classic Greek and Roman myths, including Aesop's Fables; one had Scandinavian, Oriental, and Eastern European mythology. One had very dry, moral stories, sort of a slightly older pre-Dick and Jane type. One covered the Iliad; another the Odyssey. One had very obscure and indifferent poetry considered suitable for children, etc. etc.

I think there were 15 or 17 books in the set. They belonged to my father's first wife so when my parents got divorced, my brother received all his mother's books. He had long outgrown them; that was how I ended up with them in my bedroom and fell in love with literature. They had wonderful classical metal engraving reproduction prints in the books. To this day I'm a fan of Old European metal and wood prints; I swoon over Albrecht Durer, LOL.

When my parents divorced the set of books disappeared (that's when my brother took them back). I later discovered he sold them to a used bookstore, the idiot. I would have paid him more to buy them back from him.

I managed to discover four of them in a used bookstore. Alas, no others have ever resurfaced.

I can only speak from my own personal experience but when you have lost all your immediate family things become more precious. My mom saved a baby dress, a stool I got when I was 3, and since I had long curly hair as a child my mom at some time snipped one of those curls and put it in an envelope. I have my mom's childhood Bible, a bracelet she got from her father before he passed away when she was 7, and 2 photographs of her as a preteen. I wish I had more. My advice for anyone is to think if you no longer have living family, what things would mean the most to have.