happy weekend
It's been fun guest blogging over at Black Eiffel, sharing a few of my own odd little collections. (Do people think I'm completely crazy after seeing what I collect? Maybe.)
The image above is of Bee and C with their rock collections, which we keep in old shoe boxes. When we've been outside all day I inevitably find a rock or two at the bottom of my purse, stashed for safe keeping when I wasn't paying attention. I love looking back through their rocks and remembering.. this one is from our favorite playground in Brooklyn, this one we found while we were apple picking with our friends, this little round one we found at the beach, worn smooth by the waves.
People wonder why I collect things like ticket stubs and it's because those little pieces of paper take me back. Who I was with, what we saw, sometimes little details like what I was wearing or where we ate or how the sky looked when we walked back to the subway. They make me remember details I would otherwise forget.
Here's to a weekend worth remembering!
06.12.2009
Reader Comments (15)
I guess if you are crazy, there are many more like you out here ~ myself included! Thanks for sharing your collections and tipping me off to the Collections of Nothing book ~ I am anxious to read it ~ sounds fascinating! I wonder if the collecting bug is hereditary as I remember visiting my great uncle Norm and still remember his room filled with jars of all sort of collections. Now, although I don't keep all of my collections in jars, I probably have just as much stuff as he did!
I really enjoyed your series, Brooke.
I loved your collection posts so much that you inspired me to post my chopstick wrapper collection here: http://printerpiemaker.blogspot.com/2009/06/its-wrap.html
My boyfriend doesn't understand how objects (and particularly those objects that are generally considered "trash") can have such sentimental meaning to me. It's always exciting to see other collections like mine.
Your collecting makes total sense to me. I've always saved things like napkins, ticket stubs etc of events that were important to me. A way of remembering where you've been. Children have an innate drive to collect.
Brooke, I am the same way. Everything has a story even if it's a rock or dried flower or piece of furniture. I have picked up a few gems during our year in the UAE to take home including beautiful sea shells from Oman and gorgeous black rocks from the Indian Ocean. It's fun thinking of where we found them. xx
i loved your posts this week (in addition to all of your usual posts that i also enjoy). now i'm wondering if you could share how you organize and store all of your wonderful collections. thanks for sharing!
loved your guest posts brooke - you have a way of making the mundane and unexciting beautiful and unique. no wonder you want to keep them and remember!
I totally enjoyed your guest stint of collections. I keep collections of things and at 26 years old have an eraser I got in my first month of kindergarten from the school store. I understand the memories attached to collecting. I love it.
I'm a constant picker-upper. I keep all my "specimens" in an antique type tray. It makes me happy every time I look at it.
Thank you so much for reminding me about the Rock Boxes we had as kids! It was our special project with our grandpa. So many memories flooded back, I had to blog about it. (You may notice your dress quilts series inspired me as well!)
I'm sure your kids will look back on their rock boxes fondly. And I can only hope that my grandpa got the same enjoyment out of it that you obviously have with your kids!
Love this picture of your kids. Have you guys read, Everybody Needs a Rock by Baylor? It's a wonderful story about rocks, collections, lists and nature.
Thank you for sharing your collections. They are just lovely!
i just loved your posts on your collections... they made me feel a "little less crazy" as we pretty much collect the similar things... those produce stickers, bread bag tags, rubber bands from veggies, chopstick wrappers, envelope patterns, oh and stashes of found photos.
your blog is beautiful and i look forward to reading more... thanks for sharing!
happy collecting!
*sarah
I just found your blog while researching something and I must say love collecting ticket stubs and other little things from my travels, I paste them into my travel journal, which mainly consists of tickets, addresses, little scetches and maps, and qoutes that are meaningful to me (one of my Venice pages is full of arrows pointing towards Rialto, Piazza san Marco, and Wrong way!). The funny thing is, that however eloquently I used to write in my earlier written journals, my new travel journal seems to bring memories back much more vividly. Also, people around me seem to enjoy these books too, so it becomes a shared memory. I have never hade any as many discussions about my travel journals or photo albums as I have had around my scrap books. One friend even asked if she could use it for one of her trips, as a guide book!
Awesome website.