My aunt had amazing collections. I loved visiting her during her pencil sharpener phase. Lest you worry about her connection with reality, she collected these pencil sharpeners that looked like antique items: victrola, Model T, wringer washer, etc. And any of them could sharpen your pencil should the need arise! It was a history lesson just looking at them throughout her home. She probably had 30 to 40 at the time. This collection may have led me to my career as a teacher who loves teaching history.
If you collect something and it brings joy to you and others, by all means, keep it. However, if you begin grumbling about having to dust it all, find room for new ones, or your spouse is complaining about the growing collection, consider paring it down to your top five pieces. Take photos of the others if you want the memory and sell or give away the rest.
This is a great idea. Paired with your February 12, 2015 blog comments, this is a great idea. Take everything out, lay it on a counter, combine like items, toss, and return. I recently did this with dog treats (not really a "collection" as described in this blog entry, but still a group of like items). I have a corner cabinet and 1/2 (!) of the bottom area was filled with little bags of chew sticks, fake bacon strips, boxes of Milk Bones, etc., etc. So all was removed from the cupboard. The other half of the cupboard contained the crock pot and a warming tray and some cans of soda. I got one little bin and filled it with all the chew sticks, etc. and poured all the Milk Bones from the various boxes into only one box. I threw all the empty bags and boxes away. Now we can see what we have and don't need to keep buying more because we think we are running low. We didn't actually throw any of the treats away because they eventually will get eaten. We just combined. This ended up using 1/4 or less of the cabinet. I was able to take two other items that I had stored in a hall closet and give them a new home. 1/4 of the space is still open to store any additional sodas and 2 liter bottles when they are purchased. The new space is organized and it looks great!
ReplyDeleteGreat example of organizing!!
DeleteIf you must collect, collect snow globes! They'll be in and out in no time ;)
ReplyDelete