Do you collect the same thing from each place you travel? My grammie collected spoons, some of which ended up in my kitchen. My cousin collects ornaments so each year they can reminisce about the places they’ve traveled. Unfortunately, I’m a random collector. For example, here’s what pops into mind when I think about what I’ve taken home over the past few years:
- a {totally inappropriate} t-shirt from Charleston for my husband
- antique cobalt pitcher from Bar Harbor
- sand from OBX (just a teeny bit, I promise)
- an ornament from San Francisco (and maybe some wine from Sonoma)
- vintage linens from Florida
- necklace from Hawaii
- picture frame from Colorado
In a way, it’s kinda neat that I have memories from these vacations tucked in various places around my home. In another, I wish I could have them all in one place to gaze at in the middle of a particularly harsh winter (yes, I’m talking to YOU, winter of 2011). My latest souvenirs seem to be photos as I learn to use my camera, but I haven’t taken the time to enlarge or even print out. Sigh.
I think one of my all-time favorite souvenirs happens to be what we found in an antique store last weekend. As we wandered around the shop, the owner pointed out some real sea glass and sea pottery being sold by a “waterwoman” who collected it during the 20+ years she worked on the water. It was priced at .20-.35 each, and some of it was rare! I snagged a few particularly intriguing ones, and $10 later I walked out with over 35 pieces:
As to what I’m going to do with them, I have not a clue. Any ideas? I might wrap a few in silver wire, or maybe make a windchime. There must be other ideas out there… enlighten me!
The journey some of these pieces have taken totally amazes me. I mean, can you picture the person who in 1950 tossed that glass Coca-Cola bottle into the ocean? Or the ship that might have been carrying the blue willow plate, which eventually ended up on shore after 100+ years of being battered by the waves?
That’s my sea glass fantasy, and I’m sticking to it. Please don’t tell me the pieces probably came from someone dumping their trash into the ocean in 1982. 😉
Funny, but you just reminded me that in all of the things I collect, none of them has been a collection based on places I’ve been!…I’ve brought stuff home, yeah. But I didn’t think of any of it as a thing I wanted to collect for the future. Not that I can remember right now anyway!! LOL I have all kinds of other collections though: Shoes, jewelry boxes, rocks, etc… ^_^
I must say that I’m a minimalist in my collecting. For the past 6 years most of my vacations have been taken on my motorcycle, so there’s not a lot of extra souvenier storage room!
I also HATE to spend a bunch of money on things that I feel like end up as clutter in my house.
My solution: postcards and photographs! I can ALWAYS find really great postcards from where ever I visit. Sometimes they even have some valuable information on them about the history of the place that I’ve been to.
In order to make the best use of them, I always print my photos off as soon as I get home so that they are ready with the postcards when I decide to scrapbook my adventures!
Thanks for a great post!
We mostly focus on getting tons of pictures, but I try to jot down some notes about what we did right away, because let’s face it I’m going to forget the details, lol.
I love sea glass though. When I was a little girl I lived near the ocean and I always tried bringing home the “pretty glass rocks” but my mom always made me toss it. I think it looks pretty in a clear glass container so you can see the light shine through the pieces.