Collecting from the natural world

In case it isn't readily apparent, I'm a near-hoarder. A collector. One foot in the "that's neat" world and one foot in the "she might have a borderline illness" world. No disrespect to those who actually suffer from this affliction -- I think I'm safely within my boundaries as I can still shower, find clean clothes to wear, and I know where both children and dogs are at most times.

However, I do pick things up. On the side of the road (awesome kid's play kitchen), out of a ditch (toy plane), out of someone's dumpster (okay, that was my husband and that was good stuff he found), and out in nature.

Kids love to collect stuff. I got each of my kids a flat, plastic bait box from Cabella's with the little compartments. We pick up shells, acorns, feathers, pretty much whatever neat little doo-dads we find. I also ran across this image from the Australian website HomeLife.com and loved the idea of collecting pictures or creating a scrapbook with drawings and pictures of nature.


Photo from HomeLife

Do you and your kids collect anything? Have you done any fun "nature projects" with the wee ones?

Collecting Garfield Stuff

Oh, how I loved Garfield as a kid. He was just the right amount of smarmy and sarcastic and I loved how he treated that dopey dog, Odie. Like most cartoons, I loved the holiday specials the most. The one I remember most was the Garfield Halloween show. Enjoy!


When we recently bumped in to someone's insane Garfield collection at a thrift store, we had to pick up a few things to resell in our Etsy shop. But it got us thinking: are there Garfield collectors still out there. Yes. What do they collect? Everything. Are certain things more desirable? Yes. As with most things, the more rare it is, the more valuable. For example, a quick search on Ebay found that the Garfield arcade kiddie ride and the standing Garfield with the serving tray (3 feet tall!) got the top bids recently.

If you're interested in collecting Garfield, here are a couple more things I found:

Freaky Tiki

Tiki bars. Tropical drinks with an umbrella tucked in. What says hot summer nights better than this? We recently stumbled across a huge matching set of black tiki mugs, and I kind of got to thinking about the tiki culture. I know there are tons of people out there who collect the stuff. And I've seen shows about people who have turned their entire house tiki. But what's up in my neighborhood  -- the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area -- as far as the tiki scene goes?

Here are some cool finds you may want to check out:

Foundation Tiki Bar, Milwaukee
At Random (not really a tiki bar, but of the same era), Milwaukee
Tiki Tuesday Boat Tour (haven't done it but sounds fun

If you can afford to travel, the Tiki Oasis in San Diego appears to be where it's at.

And if I were going to Tiki Oasis, here's what I'd wear:

Tiki turtle dress by Rococo Vintage



White carved Hawaiian shoes by 1Susanfunk1




Basket purse by CuriousFawnVintage



Tortoise bracelet by MekealohaClassic

Are you tiki crazy? Do you collect anything? I'd love to hear about your tiki obsession!

I Love 80s Stickers!

If you're a Gen-Xer, you may have also called yourself a sticker collector at one point in time. I know I personally had multiple sticker books and was engaged in heated negotiations with my friends, with whom I liked to make trades. You want that puffy unicorn? That'll cost you at least one of those scratch n' sniff oranges, if not two. This was big business. All the "good stores" had stickers on rolls, and the sparkly or glittery ones were always in high demand. My absolute favorite sticker of all time was a brontosaurus that was filled with some colored goo that changed color when you pressed on it. Be-u-ti-ful.

When I came across a massive stash of stickers at a local estate sale recently, I got to thinking again about this long-ago passtime. I wondered if there were still people out there who collect these things. What are they worth? What do people (grown-ups?) do with them? What I found is that lots of people collect stickers. There's even a reference book out there about scratch-n-sniff stickers to help you figure out if you've hit a goldmine of sticker goodness.

Well, the sticker collection we scored isn't worth a mint, but we all had a lot of fun with them. My kids liked the football helmets (son) and hot air balloons (daughter) the best. I personally loved the scratch-n-sniff pickles, which amazingly still smelled like pickles after sitting on a shelf for 30 years.

What about you? Were you a sticker collector? What was your favorite sticker?