Tuesday's mail brought the latest catalog from Pottery Barn - one of my favorite home decor stores. Almost every page was filled with baskets or luggage storage pieces which got me to thinking about my baskets, candy jars, canning jars, and train cases.
Since we started reorganizing our apartment in anticipation of a newborn, I've been transferring collections of shells, rocks, and minerals from open containers to canning jars (less stuff to have to dust) and putting out of reach. We've also been rearranging unstable furniture, for example moving a bookcase that Gates could push over from the living room to our bedroom.
This rearranging has been the perfect excuse to revisit and edit collections, keeping only items that I absolutely adore or frequently refer to or use. The collections pictured in the collage above are ones that "made the cut." In the photos, you see part of my book collection, a couple of train cases from my collection of retro luggage, and all of my shell and mineral collections. The books are a mix of books my grandmother read in high school - Ivanhoe, Robin Crusoe, Works of Tolstoy - and Home Economics and Interior Design References from the 1940s and 1950s that I've collected. The shells are a mix of shells I picked up on local beaches when I was a child or from beaches I visited on vacations as well as more exotic shells that I purchased from The Shell Shop in Morro Bay, CA. The rocks and minerals are a mix of rocks I pocketed from local beaches and fossils or crystals purchased at The Academy of Science or various national park gift shops. The basket is an antique and used to be my Great Grandmother's. The Geisha is older than I am and was given to my Grandfather by a colleague in the travel industry when tourism to Japan from the US was initiated after World War II.
How do you display and store your collections or crafting supplies?
Ciao Bella!
Eden