Collecting
G'day all!
One of the blogs that I came across after the Black Saturday fires back home is Meet Me at Mike's. Such a creative place! Pip has set up a weekly theme for blog posting and gosh I just have to play along. This week's theme is:
Collecting
I have pretty much always been a collector. I used to have collections of the tickets from every movie I had ever seen. I took over my brother's stamp collection when he moved out and expanded it four fold (one of my nephews has it now). Books - I love books. Old ID and auto teller cards. Stuff. I've moved on from most of these things now. Mostly.
These days I collect yarn (no kidding!!), fleece (I love trying out new types of fleece!), material.... I have a fair range of seed beads and bits and bobs for making jewellery and stitch markers with. I have my button jar (and I actually used some buttons out of it the other day!!!). I still have my books and (knitting) mags. There's a row of African Violets and other gesneriads sitting by the window along with 9 bottles with leaves and baby plantlets in them. Do 20,000-odd digital pics count as a collection?
My most recent obsession is collecting cashmere pullovers to rip out and repurpose.
If you saw how many postcards I bought whilst we were away, you would wonder if I like collecting them too. Oh and the magnets on the fridge. They are mostly of places we've been. (My favourite magnet, however, is one that shows the old Pope lying in state at his funeral with a whole heap of VIPs standing behind him. Dubya is on the end with a thought bubble, "What happened to Santa?" It's a laugh a minute around here!)
Why is it that you might say that I have a collection of sock yarn (enough for roughly 90 socks) yet I don't have a collection of hand knitted socks even though I have enough socks to wear for about two weeks without washing any? Is it because collections are not things that are used? Do collections have *potential* uses? Or are collections just pretty?
I am a terrible hoarder. I am a magpie too - I love bright shiny things. I used to pick up bits of tat (in the English form - bits of rubbish) and dustables (as my aunt-in-law calls them). It is something I became very aware of after having to move 7 times in the last 3.5 years. I try not to buy useless things unless I really really really want them days or weeks after seeing them for the first time. (Except for postcards and magnets cos I'll not get another chance to buy them and they make up for my pics being crap/weather being bad/etc.)
But I still collect Stuff.
I often wonder why I am such a magpie. My parents were children of the Depression and WWII (dad would've been 91 this year!!). They were muchly into waste not, want not. We were not very rich and we didn't have lots and lots of stuff, but had enough to surprise us kids when we had to clean the house out (the classic example being the biscuit tin with all the receipts from a trip to Sydney in the early 60s). Mum used to give me dolls for my birthday and Christmas - she only had one doll and I had to get all the dolls she misssed out on. I have a fantastic collection of Barbies from the late 70s to 1990 still lurking at home. I don't want them, I just have them. I'd quite happily sell them to a collector of such things.
Part of the reason why I have so much Stuff is I abominate throwing out useful Stuff - I send things to the op shop (thrift store) if it could be useful to others but isn't what I want or need - but things like packaging and whathaveyou that could be reused but is hard to store in a one bedroom apartment, stuff like that I get twitchy about throwing out. It isn't as if I can't buy new Stuff, I just don't want to waste Stuff.
I recently read a book about dealing with Stuff. My greatest problem with my Stuff is that I like it. I like having Lots of Stuff. I'll never be one of those really organised people with all their Stuff neatly put away, out of sight. I accumulate Stuff and I like Stuff. (So does DH, alas.) The book said your Stuff is not a problem unless *you* feel it is a problem. Until someone knocks on the door, I am quite happy with my stuff.
Now I feel like going and playing in one of my collections :-) Anyone got any ideas for how to display postcards? I like to stick them on doors but the paint here is as cheap as cheap can be and I think I'll pull the paint off with the utac/sticky dots. I am thinking of getting some EVA (vinyl substitute, eg shower curtain) and turning it into something that hangs over the door.
anon!
Lynne
PS I forgot the plant collection. We *love* plants.
PPS. Just finished a sock. Only one to go for a pair!
One of the blogs that I came across after the Black Saturday fires back home is Meet Me at Mike's. Such a creative place! Pip has set up a weekly theme for blog posting and gosh I just have to play along. This week's theme is:
Collecting
I have pretty much always been a collector. I used to have collections of the tickets from every movie I had ever seen. I took over my brother's stamp collection when he moved out and expanded it four fold (one of my nephews has it now). Books - I love books. Old ID and auto teller cards. Stuff. I've moved on from most of these things now. Mostly.
These days I collect yarn (no kidding!!), fleece (I love trying out new types of fleece!), material.... I have a fair range of seed beads and bits and bobs for making jewellery and stitch markers with. I have my button jar (and I actually used some buttons out of it the other day!!!). I still have my books and (knitting) mags. There's a row of African Violets and other gesneriads sitting by the window along with 9 bottles with leaves and baby plantlets in them. Do 20,000-odd digital pics count as a collection?
My most recent obsession is collecting cashmere pullovers to rip out and repurpose.
If you saw how many postcards I bought whilst we were away, you would wonder if I like collecting them too. Oh and the magnets on the fridge. They are mostly of places we've been. (My favourite magnet, however, is one that shows the old Pope lying in state at his funeral with a whole heap of VIPs standing behind him. Dubya is on the end with a thought bubble, "What happened to Santa?" It's a laugh a minute around here!)
Why is it that you might say that I have a collection of sock yarn (enough for roughly 90 socks) yet I don't have a collection of hand knitted socks even though I have enough socks to wear for about two weeks without washing any? Is it because collections are not things that are used? Do collections have *potential* uses? Or are collections just pretty?
I am a terrible hoarder. I am a magpie too - I love bright shiny things. I used to pick up bits of tat (in the English form - bits of rubbish) and dustables (as my aunt-in-law calls them). It is something I became very aware of after having to move 7 times in the last 3.5 years. I try not to buy useless things unless I really really really want them days or weeks after seeing them for the first time. (Except for postcards and magnets cos I'll not get another chance to buy them and they make up for my pics being crap/weather being bad/etc.)
But I still collect Stuff.
I often wonder why I am such a magpie. My parents were children of the Depression and WWII (dad would've been 91 this year!!). They were muchly into waste not, want not. We were not very rich and we didn't have lots and lots of stuff, but had enough to surprise us kids when we had to clean the house out (the classic example being the biscuit tin with all the receipts from a trip to Sydney in the early 60s). Mum used to give me dolls for my birthday and Christmas - she only had one doll and I had to get all the dolls she misssed out on. I have a fantastic collection of Barbies from the late 70s to 1990 still lurking at home. I don't want them, I just have them. I'd quite happily sell them to a collector of such things.
Part of the reason why I have so much Stuff is I abominate throwing out useful Stuff - I send things to the op shop (thrift store) if it could be useful to others but isn't what I want or need - but things like packaging and whathaveyou that could be reused but is hard to store in a one bedroom apartment, stuff like that I get twitchy about throwing out. It isn't as if I can't buy new Stuff, I just don't want to waste Stuff.
I recently read a book about dealing with Stuff. My greatest problem with my Stuff is that I like it. I like having Lots of Stuff. I'll never be one of those really organised people with all their Stuff neatly put away, out of sight. I accumulate Stuff and I like Stuff. (So does DH, alas.) The book said your Stuff is not a problem unless *you* feel it is a problem. Until someone knocks on the door, I am quite happy with my stuff.
Now I feel like going and playing in one of my collections :-) Anyone got any ideas for how to display postcards? I like to stick them on doors but the paint here is as cheap as cheap can be and I think I'll pull the paint off with the utac/sticky dots. I am thinking of getting some EVA (vinyl substitute, eg shower curtain) and turning it into something that hangs over the door.
anon!
Lynne
PS I forgot the plant collection. We *love* plants.
PPS. Just finished a sock. Only one to go for a pair!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOh thank god, someone else who likes Stuff. I always feel so guilty that I love all my 'things', most of which aren't worth anything really, but they mean a lot to me. It's all about decluttering. I think all my things make me feel like my house is a home. Collect away I say!!!
ReplyDeleteHooray for someone else who likes Stuff!
ReplyDeleteThank goodness. I also like stuff. I've been heavily into recycling pots and things lately for gardening. I also have a large collection of yarn. We were very poor when I was little so we used to use things up and make use of what we had.
ReplyDelete