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New Article for This Week’s Citizen…

Most of us collect and display something unique in our lives. It might be a collection of family snapshots in elaborate scrapbooks, meaningful vacation souvenirs arranged lovingly on a bookshelf, or random sea shells resting peacefully on a bathroom ledge. Others form collections for a specific purpose and with incredible discipline: hundred year old coins or antique radio parts for an ambitious project. Since three or more of anything merits a collection, find a clever way to display your treasured pieces as if they are works of art. Collections are a fantastic way to showcase what you love, and your personal style can quickly become an artistic display in itself. By showing your collections openly, you will constantly be reminded of the things you love and can share the joy they bring you with others.

Collections typically start out innocently and innocuously. A friend gives you a frog figurine for your birthday one year and suddenly everyone thinks you love frogs. They start pouring in at every occasion and you now own a gigantic frog collection. Maybe you do not even have space to display your collection or perhaps you simply do not know how or where to display your pieces. If you started your collection intentionally, you should sort the collection into groupings split by either room or season to start.

Before designing the display for your collection, you must first organize it. Unpack all your items and examine what you have amassed over the years. If you have too many pieces, consider paring down your collection. If you have a small space, you can be logical about how many pieces will comfortably fit. Collections are generally started for a reason so enjoy your prized possessions by creating a fabulous display. Clutter is a detractor even if you can afford to collect Faberge eggs by the dozen. You can find a place to put almost anything in your home. Shelves and vacant wall spaces are the most common presentation areas, but try thinking outside the box for creative new places and original ways to display your treasures.

Now that you have taken a good look at your collection, move onto separating your collection by color. This is the easiest way to group your collection when you are ready to display it openly. If you have several shelves throughout your home, this is also a good way to decide what to put where. A pleasing display can easily be created by grouping like-colors together. Blue bathroom? Find or commandeer an open shelf and put all those lighthouse figurines in there. Grouping items by color also provides a unified look in a place where lots of color may seem out of place or distracting from the room’s focal point.

Keep in mind the intended use of the room as well. A plate collection makes sense in a dining room as do tea cups in the kitchen. A vintage key collection hung carefully by alternating ribbon in the entry of the home is appropriate and serves as a discussion piece as well.  This also gives you the ability to add a sense of depth to a vacant wall without having to break out a paint roller to change the wall treatment in the process.

Strong shapes and bold colors make for a great collection. Whether the items are vintage or sparkling new, do not feel pressured to make everything match perfectly; it is simply not possible. A large assortment of colors is acceptable in an oversized display; however a communal base shade will help the set feel more uniform. Try combining several sizes and shapes as well. When you begin collecting, you may not have any rhyme or reason to what you collect, but everything always has a size and a shape. Also try to focus on odd numbers when arranging a collection. Three figurines of varying sizes will be more calming than two mirrored figurines that are the exact same size sitting right next to each other. Remember to put the taller items near the back and place the smaller pieces in a staggered formation in the front.

Finding the right pattern in which to hang or place your collectibles can be tricky. Try tracing your items onto paper bags and cutting out the templates. This way you can tape the templates onto the wall in varying patterns until you find the one you love - without putting several holes in the wall in the process. Keep in mind that a symmetrical arrangement is considered more formal, whereas an abstract display is more modern. Pick which style you prefer, or mix and match displays until you find your own unique style. You may just be surprised by what comes to light!

This entry was posted on 17. January 2008 at 07:16 and is filed under Decor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.