If I told you I have only a handful of things I collect, my husband would laugh in my face. He’d immediately correct me with “you collect pillows, empty boxes, wrapping paper you never use and handbags to name a few“. Well, yeah. That’s true. I have a lot of all of those things. Although I will say I only have 7 handbags, which as I’ve tried to convince husband, ain’t a lot in lady terms.
I’m very conscious of the fine line between having a quirky collection and being a full blown hoarder. I’m quite ruthless in recent years when it comes to cutting clutter, but there are a small few things I enjoy collecting that aren’t taking over our apartment. Yet.
FEATHERS – oh, I can’t resist a pretty feather. If I see one that’s particularly lovely, I will go out of my way to pick it up. My two favourite found feathers are a dotted magpie feather and a swan feather I rescued last year after a lawnmower went over it. I just can’t help myself. But I have no idea how to display them. At the moment they’re just sitting on our shelves, safely out of reach from furry paws.
WHISKERS – when I say I collect whiskers, it sounds really disturbing. No, you don’t need to call animal welfare; I don’t pluck our cats faces. These are whiskers I find around our apartment when I’m tidying. When I spot one, I talk in an embarrassing cat mom voice and add it to the little jar my cousin gifted me last year from Tiger. It is literally the purrfect size. Both of our cats have white whiskers, so I never know if they came from Juniper or Toshi.
Also, I don’t know if it’s a midlife crisis, but I’ve always adored the Sylvanian Families, but never had them when I was younger. I’ve collected two kittens recently, and I can easily see myself getting a giant collection. Yes, I took their clothes off. Our cats don’t wear clothes so neither are these guys. They are just SO SAWFT AND FLOOFY!
CORKS – I’ve written about our cork collection before, and it’s a tradition of ours still going strong. Whenever we celebrate a special occasion and a non-screw-top bottle of wine is involved, we’ll keep the cork and write that days details on it. We have corks from our anniversaries, holidays, wedding, honeymoon, Christmas, New Years, birthdays, and silly occasions such as our landlord not increasing our rent one year.
So tell me, do you have any weird or unusual collections? Are the collections you have things you buy or things you find? And how do you display your collections?
Also featured – skull can art – bar cart
Oh my gosh, this is amazing! Coincidentally, I'm currently researching for my MA thesis and it's all about collecting, so I wondered if you would be interested in taking part in my questionnaire? It's pretty short, you can find the questions are here:
https://objectmemories.wordpress.com/2015/05/29/collecting-a-questionnaire-reminder
I would really appreciate your contribution if you have the time!
Best wishes,
Katie
No problem at all Katie! And hopefully anyone else who spies your comment here will fill it out too.
Best of luck with your thesis! 🙂
Yep. I will do it also. Also… Cat whiskers. OMFG. I love you. Ha!
Hahahahahahha! It sounds so much worse than it is.
=^.^=
You strange woman – cat whiskers!!! Hahaha, that did make me laugh! And naked Sylvanian Family kittens! (I never had them as a kid either – we were so deprived!)
It's cool to have these interesting different collections – the feathers are beautiful too.
Right, I'll stop spamming you now!
xx
Hahaha I know. The cat whiskers sound a bit mad! Or possibly a touch more than mad. But I'm embracing it 🙂 I also found two more really lovely feathers over the weekend so my feather collection is coming along nicely.
Aaaand I just realized how crazy I sound.