If Can't Delete Work Items - How to Remove / Get Rid of Them

We created a lot of work items at the beginning of our project before
we really understood all of it. We have work items that we do not
plan on doing. It would be nice to delete the non-needed work items
but I see from a previous post that you can't delete work items.
So - what do I do to remove these or get rid of them or not see them
(and not have them added to our effort)?
Any suggestions?

If you set the status to Invalid, it will stil show up in reports and
if the work item is a story with points and and iteration it will
still show in the plans. is there a way tototally get rid of it. We
have read posts about setting a new project and moving them there.