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Artifcts \ Articles \ DECLUTTERING & ORGANIZING \ Every Room Has a Story: Closet Edition

Every Room Has a Story: Closet Edition

August 21, 2024

Reading time: 7 minutes

You may be surprised, but in the world of tough ‘stuff’ to sort through, declutter, and organize, for many of us our closets top the list. Call it what you want, but we’ve learned that along with the many stories and memories those closets hold, closets can store a lot of trauma inside, too.

Think about the bedroom closet alone. We pack in the past lives we lived in those clothes, past versions of ourselves that fit into those clothes, and cherished pieces and memento boxes that tie us to places or times we want to remember. Maybe we even stash and store the same for loved ones who have passed or kiddos we’ve raised.

As you surely have guessed by now, in this edition of ARTIcles by Artifcts, we’re closing out our “Every Room Has a Story” series with a focus on your closets.

Catch up on past editions in the series: Living Room | Kids’ Rooms | Bathroom | Kitchen

A Walk Back in Time: The Red Coat

More than 50 years ago, a young college student in Chicago met the man she was going to marry through mutual friends, as is so often the case. She had one of those personalities that exuded light and energy and attracted people to her. And if that weren’t enough, she boldly wore a brilliant red, full-length, heavy wool coat to counter the long and sometimes gray and dreary Chicago winters. Hard to miss!

A long red wool coat with large silver buttons

What's your "red coat," that item in your closet you just can't part with even if you'll never wear it again?

Fast forward to the present day.

The woman’s husband and one of her grown daughters are in the former master bedroom on the second story of the family home. Even though the new master bedroom on the first floor has been in use for at least 10 years and boasts a beautiful custom closet and dressing area, the old walk-in master closet is still brimming with clothing, old suitcases, and more.

Hemming and hawing over how to tackle this ‘stuff’ in preparation for a future downsizing move, the woman’s husband spots the red coat. “Oh, you have to take this to your mother.”

With a quizzical look, the daughter grabs the coat and heads downstairs to her mother.

“My red coat! Where did you find it?” the mom says, as though she just misplaced it yesterday, when in fact the daughter had never in her 40+ years of life seen the coat. And with good reason, too. The coat, clearly of high quality, had stains and moth holes that suggest it should be retired.

“You know, I wore that coat when I was in college. Your dad could spot me across campus,” said the mother. “It was fun to be the ‘gal in the red coat.’”

You see, that coat was a part of a moment in time when their love story was unfolding. It was as fresh in the woman’s mind as anything she’d worn since. She had no interest in downsizing this coat, even after decades of disuse. Despite its bulk and condition, it would be making the future move.

Stories & Your Closet

If you want to embrace feng sui concepts of harmony and balance, closets are an intuitive space to start, partly because closets are so prone to chaos. Closets often come with doors, too, allowing us to ignore the chaos for another day.

Sorting like with like, using matching sets of hangers and storage boxes, arranging shoes in the same front facing fashion, and the like, are the simplest means to diminish closet chaos. But if you truly want to declutter, never mind downsize, recognizing and honoring the stories within, we’d argue, is a critical second.

1. The ‘Why’ of the Clothing We Keep.

We’re talking specifically about clothing you’ll never wear again. It’s one of our spring-cleaning themes and top targets for decluttering. You know it’s there, even if hidden, the clothing you should recycle or donate. We’re looking for:

- - Holes, tears, stains
  - Faded fashions
  - Ill-fitting pieces
  - New, with tags, because you had a vision you never brought to fruition, or it simply got buried
  - Single-purpose pieces (hello, bridesmaids dresses, costumes, and event and corporate swag)

If you’re wrestling with the sentimental nature of a piece, Artifct that. You’ll feel better.

Both of our cofounders have Artifcted old suits they wore in their government days. There’s a lot of memories in those suits and feelings of pride and accomplishment. You may know the feeling tied to a key garment and moment in your own life. Artifct that and then donate that to Dress for Success or a similar charity.

Hot tip: If it’s a bridesmaid dress you’re thinking of donating, ask the bride before you donate, in case she harbors dreams of a vow renewal one day. We’re happy to save you the potential regret if you didn’t ask!

2. The ‘Why’ of Memento Boxes.

Now the existence and content of some of these keepsake boxes are open secrets, others not so much. But these keepsake boxes and memory boxes, no matter how cute, stylish or feng sui, are vulnerable to fire and flood as well as creatures that could find them munchable. In addition, the details behind what’s inside will easily fade from memory and more rapidly than you’d like to imagine.

True story: One of our co-founder's daughters recently created a memory box for school. She promises to Artifct first whatever goes into it. Will she? Time will tell. She already has more than 100 Artifcts, so there’s hope.

If you care about what’s in your memento boxes, we implore you to Artifct that. And talk through the contents with them. Have a seat. Share, more than once. Let them know you better. We will never tell you these types of boxes, in moderation, have to go. In fact, we believe everyone deserves a purple bin, yours might just be another color or style.

3. The Why of the Bulky Closet “Clutter.”

Yes, clutter lives in closets, too. We STASH so much in those closets. Take a look and ask about the why behind your stashes.

A recent closet we were in had stashes of:

- - Gifts to give “someday,”
  - Unused frames in want of art or photos,
  - Old, unused medical supplies,
  - Brown paper bags of old tax documents and banking records, and
  - A box of family heirlooms from a loved one who had passed away six years prior.

The why of stashes often comes down to some form or procrastination. As Matt Paxton likes to say, “Procrastination kills memories.” Procrastination also creates chaos and kills the good intentions in the keeping.

- - Organize what you want to keep and label it, if that will help you remember it’s there so you can put it to good use. The reason professional organizers love clear bins is to keep the items visible. But if labels do the trick—or a combination of both—go for it! If you are helping someone with dementia to declutter and organize, clear bins and photos have other purposes. Check out this ARTIcles story for insights and tips!
  - Artifct items from loved ones and share those Artifcted stories so others can enjoy. Plus, if you don’t want to keep it all, your Artifcts become the easy means to ask if others would like to keep the items. Win-win!
  - Donate unused—and in some cases lightly used—medical supplies through Goodwill or other similar charitable organizations in your community.
  - If those old documents are more than seven years old, you’ll generally be okay to shred them yourself or at a community shred event. If in doubt, ask your financial advisor. But do not hang onto these where they can do you no good and only create vulnerability if someone were to use the information they contain to access resources they should not.

Procrastination kills memories. - Matt Paxton, TV host, author, public speaker

A storage bin for documents organized with labeled file folders can be a better than nothing option, but is nearly as problematic as a brown paper bag. A digital vault, like Trustworthy, can organize important documents via files and images you upload in no time and ensure vital information is accessible to you, your loved ones, and any tax, legal, or other advisors you employ. Bonus: Digital resources can be accessed anytime, from anywhere and you can even receive smart notifications when renewals and updates are required.

4. Special Closet Clutter: Kid Stuff.

We’re talking about reducing kid clutter we’ve found in closets, which admittedly feels a bit like touching the third rail. But hear us out! Do you really need to wardrobe a future generation? How much of it will breakdown or decay before it can ever be used again? And, perhaps most importantly, do you remember why it’s so special? No? Great, out and onward it goes. Yes? You know what we’re going to say: Artifct That.

Here’s a great example from our cofounder Ellen. She did keep a couple dresses that belonged to her daughter as a baby and a toddler. Notice we said a couple. But she also Artifcted them with pics of her daughter wearing the dresses to make it oh-so-easy to remember and share the why behind the dresses. CLICK THE IMAGE to view the Artifct.

While sentiment and frugal tendencies can be at play, sometimes you find people are holding onto stuff that their GROWN adults have ASKED them to keep, because they don’t have the space or do not want to take the time or pay the expense to ship it to their homes. Hard no. If you are ready to lighten the load in your home, give your grown adult children a deadline to claim the items. Yes, “adulting” can be hard, but enabling grown adult children to behave, well, like children, doesn’t generally end well. If you can relate, you might want to read or re-read this inspiring guest ARTIcles story from a dad who shared the tough love he showed his adult children during his downsizing experience.

Many of us struggle to bring our habits, best intentions, or even creative brains into play to help us get the job "decluttering" job done. For others, the stories behind the stuff get in our way. But keep in mind as you go room by room that like any muscle, decluttering requires practice. And Articting is here to support you along the way. Object by object as you Artifct you can reflect on what it is, why you have it, and make a decision on what will happen to that object in the future.

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Three Things I Discovered by Curating My Photos

We’re at a point in history and culture when normal social discourse means conversations may include topics like minimalism, decluttering, and made-up concepts like ‘stuffocation’ and ‘stuffidemics.’ And while we might think about going room by room through the bulkier tangible things we keep to declutter our lives, you know what else threatens to bury us? Photographs.

Historically, photographs were the domain of professionals who we posed for and who captured beautiful artistic photographs. We didn’t have a lot of them. It was a lot more expensive, so each one tended to mean more to us.

Now we’ve gone from photos being treasured moments and memories to a proliferation that started back in the 50s and 60s and vastly accelerated with 35mm film—remember all those double and triple prints you’d get so you could distribute them to all your friends and create albums that are now decaying? Maybe you don’t remember who is even in them and half are blurry or badly composed anyway.

And now DIGITAL photos! We take an estimated 5.3 billion photos daily worldwide. Think about that! This is where we’ve done ourselves a disservice because we’ve lost the story thread – why any one of those photos matter. Regular folks like us don’t want to sift through “metadata” on a photo to understand why it matters to us, when we took it, where we were. This is not a pleasant experience.

Digital photo statistics

And the ease of digital also undermines us as we declutter and organize our homes, where if you follow the advice of old, “Take a photo, and let the stuff go,” now that means that photo is very quickly 20 back, 140 back, 1,000 back on your phone. You’ve totally forgotten you took the photo and never shared the story or done anything to remember why it mattered to you.

You may also be interested in A Virtual Impossibility: Keeping Up with All My Digital Photos.

Artifcts and Curating Your Photo Collection

Today when we tell people to clean up and curate their photo collections to something meaningful, we have a truly daunting and growing task in front of us. Even for those photos from the 60s and 70s this is a problem.

While many people won’t have a lot of photos from that time, the photos they do have are very likely housed in shoe boxes, photo albums, or scrapbooks. One day, when our co-founder Ellen Goodwin was working through one of her parents’ scrapbooks, “Because it’s falling apart and needed to be digitized,” she paused to take a picture of a black and white photo of her mother playing tennis. “I took the photo because my immediate thought was, ‘My mother does NOT play tennis.’ It might as well be a Halloween costume.” Ellen’s daughter caught her taking the picture and was confused, “Why are you taking a picture of that? Who is it?”

Woman in white tennis outfit, swinging a racket

So here we go – one generation removed, and the story is gone; a second generation removed, and it’s become someone’s genealogy project or fodder for an AI-powered facial recognition tool. Who is that in the photo?

One generation removed, and the story behind the photo is gone; a second generation removed, and it’s become someone’s genealogy project. Who is that in the photo?

Your Three-Step Photo Curation-to-Story Formula

We know we can do better than to store our photos and cross our fingers that they stay safe and stay relevant. We can curate our photos, the best of, seminal moments, works of art. We can marry those photos with their stories through Artifcts, because a picture is NOT always worth 1,000 words.

Ellen often shares an example of this based on a subset of photos of her daughter. “I literally have more than 1,000 photos of my kid swimming. She’s been at it for more than half of her lifetime, on three different club teams and now a high school swim team, too. But there’s that ONE picture where she’s flexing her arms and smiling up at me in the stands because she just got her first USA Swimming BB time.”

First USA Swimming BB Time, Artifcts

It’s one of the favorite photos she’s Artifcted. It includes a video of the swim from that day and the story. Ellen acknowledges, “My daughter being 14 years old may not appreciate it now, or even in another 14 years, but she will someday, and it will be here in Artifcts, easy to share, and in a bite sized story format that is within our ever-shrinking attention spans.”

Use this formula to simplify your photo-to-story process so you, too, can make progress on capturing what matters most – the stories behind those photos.

1 - CURATION. You guessed it, start with curation. We live in a bite-sized world with bite-sized attention spans. This is reinforced by research, too. Miller’s Law says that that short-term memory is limited to seven items, plus or minus two. Hedge your bets and go with five items, like the five photos and/or videos you can include in a single Artifct to tell a story.

Besides, achievable goals support habit formation. If you want to make progress in culling through those digital photos, do not try to boil the ocean. Pick a few, Artifct them with a story, and call it a day. Don’t take on an entire memoir at once!

2 - CONTEXT. To avoid getting twisted in knots over what to say about a photo, simply start with something true, e.g. who took the picture?

If you move on through the five Ws like they taught you in grade school, one W, one memory, will unlock others. For example, true story of asking a mom about a wooden cat that’s a piece of decoration:

Mom: “Oh, well, that’s a cat.”

Daughter: “Thanks, Mom, I can see that. Where did it come from?”

Mom: “I carved it. I was 16, and it was part of a wood shop class I took.”

Daughter: “Wood shop in the 60s? For GIRLS?!”

Mom: “Yes. And actually it was the first year the boys’ and girls’ schools were combined. There was a boy who was jealous of my cat and stole it. It took a while to get it back.”

And on and on it goes!

3 - SHARING. Myths, legends, fireside tales, they live on in the sharing. And sharing a story is not the same as telling a story. Telling is unidirectional. Were they really listening, were they ready to hear it, and will they then take on its meaning and value?

Artifcts definition of story sharing

You may also be interested in Storytellers, Beware!

Curating Your Photos Often Delivers Unexpected Insights

Now, don’t get us wrong, just because we do not want to look at metadata on a photo to try and remember why it matters or to share the story behind it, does not mean that we think metadata is useless. Quite the opposite. Your own phone can instantly sort and search your collection.

And through sorting your photos quickly, you can then more easily move on to curation. And that’s where the insights begin to flow. We asked Ellen for three things she learned about herself when she paused to sort and curate her digital photos. Here’s what she said:

Swimming is life. Well, this one was not a surprise exactly, I knew I had a lot of swimming photos. But I was surprised I didn’t have more. I discovered an extreme dropoff in volume once Artifcts existed because my habits changed. While sitting and waiting at swim meets, I almost always (a) cull swim photos I don’t want and (b) create relevant Artifcts.

My feet have been places. I had to laugh at myself when I realized just how many photos I have taken of my own feet, wearing shoes, standing in some place I thought was interesting. Thankfully, with metadata, I know where some of those places were when I cannot otherwise remember or figure it out from the picture. And it makes for a great series to share with friends for a laugh.

Collection of photos of shoes, Artifcts

Inspiration is everywhere; I want to be inspired. More than any other theme I can discern from the pictures I take is the magic of finding inspiration in just about anything. Do you pause to take pics of interesting patterns and shapes in nature? What about beautiful color combinations in a random mural on the street? Lines in a book, art on a cover of a magazine, a setting in a TV show?

Inspiration can come from anywhere, and it’s amazing that digital photography makes it possible to keep it all close at hand.

For an extra boost in your photo-to-story efforts, download our free checklist for photos here.

Happy Artifcting!

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Need help wrangling massive volumes of photos, digital and analog?

Consider hiring a professional photo manager! Check out The Photo Managers to learn more.

April 23, 2025

PHOTOS, DOCS & OTHER MEDIA

What is Deinfluencing? A New Word for Well-Known Good Habits.

We wrote today’s ARTIcles story months ago to save for a rainy day or lightning bolt of inspiration that would say now is when the Arti Community needs it most. As we now watch the mayhem of all things trade tariffs unfold, and we wonder about the future cost of our favorite electronics, sneakers, cars, toys, and 1000s of other products, we seem to have arrived at the perfect moment to take a hard look at our buying habits and reconsider how we spend those hard earned dollars. We hope this exploration of the concept of deinfluencing inspires you.

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Last weekend my husband trekked to IKEA of his own volition to buy an abundance of clear plastic bins with lids to use in our garage. As far as “love languages” go, this is one of his love languages in action.

Our garage is a mishmash of random bins of various materials and colors, cardboard boxes—a no-no in Texas because the many evil bugs here like to eat them—and uncontained stuff overflowing onto shelves. Being in our garage for more than a few minutes causes me something akin to physical pain, and it’s not just because it feels like it’s a 120-degree sauna 9 months of the year. The visual chaos overwhelms me.

Why Buy Storage Bins Instead of Getting Rid of Stuff?

Storage bins are a consumer product phenomenon of concern for many who worry that the more bins we buy, the more stuff we give ourselves permission to keep. And maybe with these bins we even lessen our need to routinely declutter if items are “out of sight, out of mind.” Arguably there’s less social pressure to declutter, too, if visitors to your home won’t even notice. Right?

Maybe. Maybe not.

My husband certainly trimmed down and cleaned out his stuff as he filled the bins. And the clear bins he bought will happily end the visual chaos that bothers me. Plus, in this case, they are extremely practical. My husband spends a lot of time in the garage building his bikes—road, mountain, and cyclocross—as well as tinkering with his golf clubs and more. He even has as t-shirt, "I'll be in the garage." Knowing what he has in his inventory and easily spotting things he needs matters.

Continue reading as we explore our reliance on bins from a different point of view: “deinfluencing.” Have you heard of it? Deinfluencers are out there in the social media sphere and want you to buy less stuff and put less pressure on the planet when you change your mind, forget you even bought it, or trends fade. While it may be a popular social media hashtag and buzzword we think it has valuable lessons to offer as we all take a fresh look at what we collect, accumulate, and inherit. Before you store it in those bins, before you even buy it, ask yourself: What is it, why does it matter, and what will I do with it next?

Deinfluencing Defined

The general idea of deinfluencing is to consciously choose to buy less and to better educate ourselves on the products we purchase. For many, this might include an eye toward more sustainable and ethical supply chains. For others it could be about product testing and safety above all else. Priorities vary.

The deinfluencing concept has apparently been dictionary-worthy for at least 5 years and may be just what saves you from your own worst buying habits. Or that’s the promise of it, I suppose.

The deinfluencing concept only went viral in early 2023, with an especially large presence in all things beauty and lifestyle.

According to a December 2023 article by Vogue, “TikTok content creator  @sadgrlswag  helped to catapult the term into virality in January 2023, posting a video in which she railed against a long list of trendy accessories, devices, and even books. ‘I’m here to deinfluence you. Do not get the Ugg minis. Do not get the Dyson Airwrap. Do not get the Charlotte Tilbury Wand. Do not get the Stanley cup. Do not get Colleen Hoover’s books. Do not get the AirPods Pro Max.’”

Even mainstream media like Vogue, Time, NPR, The Today Show, and Business Insider picked it up from TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, and elsewhere and broadcast to the likes of me, who tends to shun social media.

As I pondered this deinfluencing concept and the dilemma of plastic bins and my own buying habits, I asked my 14-year-old daughter, “Have you heard of deinfluencing?” And I got an immediate, “Yeah. You mean videos like, ‘Deinfluencing a Girl’s Favorite Products?’”

Yup, that’s EXACTLY what I mean.

Deinfluencing is Just a New Word for Well-Known Smart Habits

Deinfluencing is a concept that should transcend generations and sociodemographics, because it fits right in with a lot of smart habits as well as new year “new you” type goals:

- - Want to avoid overspending and/or stick to your budget?
  - Find it challenging to control impulse buying?
  - Feeling guilty about your own consumerism?
  - Seeking to become a more conscious consumer?
  - Skeptical of influencers, which added up to be a $16B industry in 2022, and perhaps think everything about influencers is artificial?

These are the underpinnings for the “deinfluencing.”

Ready to “Deinfluence” Yourself? Check Your Vulnerabilities First!

Try to deinfluence yourself by being more aware of what drives you to buy new bins, new stuff, or even hold onto the old stuff. And if any of the following resonates with you, grab a sticky note, and pop a note onto your laptop, tablet, or other obvious spot in your workspace, to help remind you of what traps you’d need to avoid when making your next purchase.

AESTHETICS SWAY YOU

You follow a certain well known interior designer, organizer, or other lifestyle guru, and love the fresh look they achieve with just a few new products. If you are going for a certain look, and this means swapping out old for new or just adding more, you’ve likely fallen into a consumer trap.

Now, as mentioned, sometimes containers are not doing their job well and create risks. In other cases, like the pain you might feel like I do when I’m in my garage, some sprucing up may make the space more usable and is well worth the conscious, well-considered choice you make to update or upgrade.

COMFORT IN INVENTORY

How much inventory of anything do you actually need? We all got spooked by COVID and its disruption of usual supply chains but move back to thinking more practically. Maybe you only need one at a time and can replace it when it’s gone. Inventory can also be risky if the item has a limited shelf life. This risk factor applies to everything from plastic components of bikes to cosmetics. Even my 3M hooks are now trash because the sticky foam lost its stickiness before I used the whole pack.

DRAWN TO "COLLECTIBLE" AND "LIMITED EDITION"

Watch out for those special editions and collector sets, brilliant marketing strategies because they work. Just ask Taylor Swift and her many iterations on the releases of her albums, some of which if combined create art for your wall. But if you’re trying to control spending on ‘stuff’ you really don’t need, claims from companies that something is an instant collectible or must-have limited edition may lead you astray. Make both no-gos or at least see a flashing yellow light in your mind to slow down and think again before purchasing.

“NEW!" IS ENTICING

I recently met a woman who told me that in her family, they have made buying secondhand as well as clever upcycling into a game. It’s a challenge. There’s no pride to be had in simply going online and buying it new. They scour locally at estate sales, consignment shops, and vintage stores as well as online in common marketplaces like eBay, Etsy, and Facebook Marketplace.

And here, I feel them. I recently bought salvaged industrial signs from a shop on Etsy and genuinely loved my purchase and felt happy that those signs didn’t just go into a landfill.

When In Doubt, Check Your Clutter

If you’re doubtful you fall into these clutter trappings, common fashion and beauty targets of influencers are not your thing, here’s one final strategy that might work for you: Scan your home to see what’s literally taking up space. And do not skip over the storage bins tucked in a closet or sideboard or out in the open on display on an overflowing shelf.

Let’s pick on candles. Popular enough that some people buy them like candy. And shops know it. You can now find small candles in under $5 sections as well as in the traditional candy section of checkout lanes. Being small, consumable, and available at a relatively low price point, candles are an easy add-on to your tab. Suddenly your collection is 20, 30, 40 strong, you never get to the bottom of any of those soy-based, take you back to Hawaii, feel-the-calm candles, and collectively they take up a lot of space!

Don’t scoff if you think your collections are somehow more valuable, less frivolous than candles. At least they help you get your om on! Last week at the airport, we overheard a man on a call saying, “I have a Redskins jersey. That’s going to be worth some money someday.” How many of you collect random stuff with this idea that one day it might be worth money?

Check your clutter, check your collections. All of it stands to be sneaky and consumes space and money.

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Ready to rethink your space and what's taking up room in it? We think these ARTIcles by Artifcts can help.

108 Objects to Declutter From Your Home

Collections of Dubious Value

So Much 'Stuff:' How They Suck Us In and How We Can Resist!

by Ellen Goodwin, Artifcts

April 16, 2025

DECLUTTERING & ORGANIZING

Use #Hashtags to Organize Your Artifcts. Use @ to Connect the Moments and Collections.

Last week, we received a fabulous compliment:

“Artifcts is so easy to use. And every time I think, “Oh, I wish it could do {this}, then suddenly I SEE that I can, because now that I’m looking for it, I realize that feature is real. Other products are so cluttered with buttons and widgets, I never know where I’m supposed to look. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

This glowing feedback was about something seemingly so small and inconsequential: the hashtag (#).

Hashtags are used everywhere online, so us including it at Artifcts as an option to help you stay organized seemed intuitive. And yet when people use the hashtag and see it simplifies their Artifcting, they are grateful. We’re grateful, too. We’re grateful to all members of the Artifcts for their continuous feedback and accolades.

If you’re wondering what you’ve missed, why hashtags as well as our @ feature are so valuable, keep reading!

Want to skip ahead with a short video showing how to use #hashtags and the @ feature at Artifcts?

Watch our short video.

Embrace the #Hashtag

Every object, every story, every moment you capture at Artifcts is instantly organized by design. Your #hashtags can be 100% custom to you, or you can select from a drop down of the most popular to-date among Artifcts community members. And by tapping on any #hashtag, you can view all other Artifcts with the same tag.

The Artifcts mobile app with Artifcts searched with #decor

You can learn a lot about yourself and your life as you start seeing these tags accumulate, too.

Our co-founder Heather’s top three most used #hashtags are:

1. 1. #ThatsMyGirl, for all things created by her daughter
  2. #MomsEstate, for the items she kept from her mom’s estate
  3. #FavoriteRecipes, because she hates flipping through dozens of cookbooks to find THAT recipe.

Our co-founder Ellen’s top three tags are:

1. 1. #Violet, her daughter
  2. #ArtifctsVideo, which is added automatically to any Artifct that includes a video
  3. #décor, because her 'stuff' has stories! (#MoreThanAnObject would be a great tag, too.)

Check out your top tags, and all other tags you’ve used, from your homepage.

Artifcts “Categories” Work like #Hashtags

Categories are required for each Artifct because they are important for structure and sorting as well as for providing ideas for what you may want to Artifct next.

We started building and blending our unique categories list with the types of items you’d see at auction or in collectors groups. We then customized our categories further to include all of the life stuff we tend to collect and/or accumulate around our homes, in our workshops, and with the passing of loved ones, too. No auction house has the need for a category of “Life’s Moments,” with items like cards and letters, awards, memorabilia, and photographs. But you certainly have need for this category at Artifcts.

Fall in Love With the @ Feature

Whether you’re writing a text, email, or social media post, typing @ unlocks the ability to link to other people and groups. It’s an efficient way to loop in and alert others.

Our @ feature respects your privacy, too. If you use @ in your story/description to link to another Artifct that is private, no one will see even so much as the title of that Artifct unless you’ve shared it with them. They can click to request access, which you can review and accept or decline.

At Artifcts, we evolved the @ feature a step further to meet our community's needs. We wanted @ to help us all to weave others into the stories we tell about the objects that pass through our lives. We also wanted to be able to link one Artifct to another. Maybe the Artifcts are part of a collection or one is simply part of a much bigger story.

“The @ feature is hands down my favorite boost for any Artifct I create. I love being able to lead people down the rabbit hole from one part of a story to another without having to write an essay,” said Artifcts co-founder Ellen Goodwin. “And it saves me time, too. If I use @person then the Artifct is automatically shared with them. Done and done!”

And with these tips in mind, we wish you happy Artifcting!

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April 14, 2025

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