Home Decor: Collections

I love the feeling of picking up a cute vintage tin or bottle from a thrift store, but sometimes I have trouble finding the right place in my cottage to put it. Sometimes a vintage tin looks out of place among the other, newer things in my house. I think the answer is to make a collection of things and display them together. 

My tips for displaying a collection are:

1. Use items that are similar, but different. A collection of identical items is boring, so make sure the items differ in some way. A variety of shapes and sizes makes for a more appealing display.

2. Have enough, but not too many, items. How many items a display needs depends on what the item is. For tins or bottles, more is more, as long as there is sufficient variety. For something more unique, like globes or vintage cameras, you only need three or four or the collection may start to look boring and overdone. If you do have a large collection of something like vintage cameras, it is best to display them in a systematic way, in a custom-made display case like this:

Or on shelving, using chalkboard paint like this:

3. Choose only items that you like. It may be tempting to buy a whole lot of plain-looking tins just to make up a collection to display your favourite vintage tin, but the collection will just look like one nice tin surrounded by plain tins. Be discerning.

4. Before buying something, picture what it will look like in your home. Do you have a place for it? Are there other things that would look good with it? If you don't know where you are going to put it, it will probably just end up in storage (or in the junk cupboard if you're anything like me!).  

Some well-displayed collections:

Do you collect anything in particular?

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Molly