Keepsake for a Boy

When my brother was younger my parents would buy him patches of places we'd go...and then my mom sewed onto a sweatshirt. I always thought that was a cute idea.

Boy are a tough one. Growing up I always saw my grandfathers talk about baseball cards the one collected and postcards that the other collected. I started collection Stamps (postal stamps) for my one son and the other on his own wanted to collect postcards to be like great grandpa. I've heard of others with matchbox cars lining the room with a little shelf that went around the entire thing. It's got to be something that means something to the child.

I'm keeping a scrapbook for each of my kids. I keep pictures, patches, keepsakes, ribbons, awards, anything that can fit in the scrapbook and have it put together chronologically, so that by the time they leave home, they'll have their childhood capsuled in one book. My husband even contributes, by putting together a "collage" page that sums up the family's year. We use the collage pages as dividers between years.

Another idea, is put together t-shirt quilts. So far, I've been putting aside their favorite printed t-shirts and sport jerseys they've outgrown, fill them with a thin layer of batting and sew them shut so I have a square "pillow". As I have time, I've been sewing the squares together, and plan to give this to them when they go away to college. I think they'll get a kick out of seeing their favorite shirts from childhood in a cozy quilt when they're far from home. You know..like comforts of home...warm fuzzy memories. It's practical and easy to do.

My grandparents started collecting coins for my brother and now he has a huge collection.

Hmm, great question. This idea certainly is not as small as a charm bracelet, but something that we do with my son is baseball caps. My husband travels a lot so anywhere he goes, he gets our guy a hat from that area. We have them all lined up on a shelf in his room and it is cute to see how they have started to grow in size as he has gotten older.
L.

How about collecting trains?

Hot wheels, they are collectables.(mcdonalds) nasscars,baseballcards,pig banks,(i filled them up every birthday, small ones add up to 10-15 $$$)or any kind of boy bank collection(snoopy, micky mouse,cars, trucks, dollar tree and dollar stores have some.) hope i was alittle helpfull B.

Hi J.,

I have made a collection of piggy banks for my two boys. They love them. We keep all our change from all our purchasese and they divide it up to save for college. It has been very fun for them, we don't miss the money, and hopefully someday it will save on the college bill.

Have fun! There are lots of unique banks out there.

How about keychains. There are a huge variety of them at various ranges in price. I also recommend coin collecting, stamp collecting, or rock collecting.

You have a lot of great ideas here. The one about the patches on the sweatshirt is a neat idea, but I found that buying a twin size blanket and embrodering my sons name and Boy scout troop number across the top and then putting all the patches he recieved in cub scouts and boy scouts was a fun way to display them.

one idea i had heard was a charm on a Christmas stocking. otherwise, Christmas ornaments??

hm. trucks? trains LOL.

My son is 31, and I have been giving him Legos every Christmas and birthday since he was three! Now I give him Duplos so he can play with his son.

I love the idea of baseball hats, but another idea that we've had is polished rocks and plastic dinosaur figures. There are hard resin figurines that we've used as play and as "to keep".

We started collecting pins for my son. He loves to display them on his backpack. Family members add to his collection when they travel places, parades often give away pins, and we pick them up as souvenirs when we travel.

Hi,
We also have a son (just turned 1) and we were thinking about getting a train car for every birthday or Christmas. After a few years, he will have a nice set to start playing with. We struggled too with a collection. Hope your CM business is going well. I am also a part time CM consultant.
A.

I don't know how large you want this collection to be, but I started the Dept. 56 North Pole Village collection for my grandson when he was 2. He is 5 now, and we have added pieces every year. He loves his village and looks forward to putting it up every Christmas season. I buy most of the pieces on ebay and at half-price sales after the season. If he breaks a piece playing with it, we glue it back! We're not doing this to sell it down the road and make any money. It is purely for his enjoyment. My husband has collected baseball cards since he was 7 and has a wonderful collection. My grandson enjoys sitting with him and going through the cards. One day the collection will be his.