Collectors Corner

by Rosalie Stanley

Sometimes people save and collect things but never know what to do with them.

I, for one, could never throw out the little ceramic figures from my husband’s tea boxes. They sat in a kitchen drawer waiting to be displayed. I couldn’t throw out my daughter’s little tea set either so it was stowed away in a box. I don’t like to dust more than I have to, so there they sat, waiting.

A couple of years passed and my husband, JP, went back to Pennsylvania to help his siblings get their family home ready for sale. After a week of work he returned home to California.

“I have a present for you” he proudly exclaimed. Of course I was anxious to see what he had for me so we sat down while he searched through his suitcase.

He was very excited when he presented me with a little blue pouch and I could tell it was something special. “You’re going to like this,” he said. To my amazement there were at least fifty little ceramic figures that his mother had collected from her tea boxes and a bunch of marbles. I was very grateful for the present but feared they would end up with all the others where they would spend their life in hiding.

As always with me, inspiration came one day when I was weeding. There was a wooden “parts organizer” in the garage and I could use it to display the little ceramic critters in the garden.

I quickly hung it on the fence and placed the figurines in each compartment. They now had a home of their own and became a stopping point for people strolling through my garden. I didn’t have to dust them; they weren’t hidden in a drawer; and they gave me the idea to put other collectables in my garden where people could enjoy them.

So, take those sentimental collectibles that you can’t part with but don’t want on display in the house and put them in the garden, where they can add interest and conversation to those that pass by.