Decluttering with Ella the Pack Rat

Ella loves everything she has ever owned.  And I do mean everything--a scrap of paper she folded over a pebble, a tiny bent photo (that we have another dozen of in good shape), a chewed on eraser, and the list goes on.  Her rebuttals go something like this--"but I found that pebble on the bus with my friends," "but that's a good memory of when I took that picture to school in my pocket," "but I remember when I won that eraser on a fun day at Incredible John's with Grandma and Grandpa!"  I don't want to deny the girl her happy memories, but I think she can probably survive with just the memories and without the pieces of paper.  It's hard to be ruthless around Ella though since she's so sweet and well-meaning about all of desires to keep things.  Today ended up with me taking pictures of things she finally agreed to throw out, so she can keep the pictures instead of the stuff.  I think it's a pretty good compromise.