Clutter or Treasure?!?

Children's artwork and homework. What do you keep and what do you throw away?

I'm an anti-clutter fanatic (at least according to Lance!!!!) I don't like clutter (except in my office) I can only look at things a couple of days without it driving me crazy. So....my plan for all the kids' projects? I go thru them and keep my absolute favorites. You know the ones that show what a genius they were that they could draw a floorplan of our house at age 5 (N actually did this!) or that they could do fingerpainting that should hang on the walls at MOMA. I only keep a select few - it's the only way to keep my sanity. But...if you choose this way of living, you must be very, very careful. If said geniuses discover their masterpieces in the trashcan, it's not good. Not good at all. So, in the middle of the night, I carefully sneak out to the garbage can and carefully place the "rejects" at the bottom of the trash, so that I'm not discovered. Does this make me a terrible mom?!?

I bring this up because I recently had lunch with a friend who is in the process of cleaning out 20 years of her children's stuff. She has an entire room filled with their stuff and is really struggling with the enormity of the task. I feel for her - it would depress me greatly. And I don't want to be in her place in a few years. I have other issues to deal with.

Anyone out there have a great solution for keeping memorable items without having to rent a storage unit to keep them in?!?