When I was a child, I was inordinately proud of my sticker collection. I lovingly placed each sticker in the album, peeling back the plastic to add it to the page and then carefully smoothing down the protective cover. Dorkily organized even at the tender age of eight, I had pages for sparkly stickers, puffy stickers, googly eyed stickers…I even had an entire album dedicated to puffy Smurf stickers.
Obviously, these are music/dance pages. And yes, this is my original sticker album. I still have it.
Oh, the hours my friends and I spent happily brokering trades and admiring our treasures. Then adolescence barreled in, and my sticker books were shelved, but not forgotten.
Key chains were much more mature things to collect, thought my teenage self. Bunches of them hung off my backpack, and more bunches hung from the bulletin board in my bedroom. Eventually they were tossed or given away, except for one of my favorites that I still have.
I still have it! But I have no idea what that key opens.
In college I briefly collected beer tabs, but only from cans I consumed myself. I managed to amass a respectable collection, strung on a ribbon hanging in my dorm room. But two months into sophomore year I started dating Matt, and drinking cheap beer for sport couldn’t hold a candle to my new guy.
A year or so later I started collecting shot glasses from places I visited. Five shot glasses looked cool on my bookshelf, as did ten or twelve. But when other well meaning people started bringing me back shot glasses from their own trips, the collection got out of hand and I lost interest. I boxed up those babies until I finally donated them when we cleaned out the basement a few years ago.
Present day. I collect nothing. I have enough crap in my house. My kids collect crap, although they call it treasure. I suppose it is, to them. I’m sure my husband would say that I collect crap too, but I don’t think shoes and purses are crap. I don’t collect them just for the hell of it; I use them and wear them. Besides, do four pairs of flat boots really qualify as a collection? I’d call them wardrobe necessities.
Do you collect anything? If you do, what do you collect? If you’re a sticker collector, I have a vintage Smurfette puffy sticker that I’m willing to trade for a new pair of boots…
Oh wow! I used to collect stickers too!! What a trip down memory lane seeing your picture! And dolls. I had a huge doll collection. Into my college years, I collected all things “Smiley Face”. People still think I do & will give me Smiley Face gifts. :-/ I think I should have started a money collection–then maybe people would be giving me fat stacks of Bennies instead of Smiley pins!
I know – that would be great! I had a doll collection too but they creeped me out. I never let my daughter have any (the show kind, not the kind you play with).
OMG….I love this post…what great memories. Those things that meant the most to us and what we valued beyond all reason. Now it’s fun to watch our kids collect and so it continues.
Yes it does – although I wish my kids collected less!
When I was in high school I collected quotes. I had them each written on index cards and had a little card box for them. I don’t remember what happened to the quote box, it probably got lost in a move, but I wish I still had it. Now I rely on Pinterest for quotes!
My daughter collects quotes too, but she collects them on her iPad notepad. Times have changed, but I think teenage girls haven’t changed as much as we think.
I still have my sticker album too – maybe a trade sometime??
Absolutely!
I used to collect stickers too – they’re still in a 20 gallon tote somewhere under the stairs! (I grew up in a house that flooded – everything is in plastic totes!). Love this – I used to collect a lot of the same things!!!!
My shot glass collection was in a plastic tote too, until we finished the basement and I had to condense a whole floor worth of stuff into one room. Out they went!
I used to collect stamps! It definitely wasn’t crap to me but other family members might beg to differ. LOL Like you, I can’t collect anything because I’ve got enough crapola in the house. But back then, it sure was fun!
It was fun back then – although I wonder what my mom thought of me spending hours with a book of stickers!
Nope, I really don’t collect anything. Unless you count food. But then I eat the food so it doesn’t really mean much.
I collect spare pounds 🙁
i used to collect stamps and stickers when i was a kid. like you, i don’t collect anything anymore. i know a friend liked roosters, and slowly she started to get more and more of a stuffed animal and ceramic rooster collection. as a joke, people who stayed over her house just started adding to this rooster collection. she said, “I am totally over it!”
Ha – I think that happens when you have collections as an adult. Friends and family add to it whether you want them too or not.
Oh this made me laugh! I remember how cool stickers were as a kid, and key chains and other backpack decor, and later cheap beer! In high school I collected everything lady bugs and pictures of David Duchovany. I’m not even kidding I had the most giant creepy fan girl wall full of David Duchovany pictures, a few of which I even took with me to college dorm room. See, I told you I was weird.
Yes, that is a little creepy…but who am I to judge? It was so easy to decorate in college – slap up some posters and you’re done.
i tried commenting, twice already. But timed out twice. So I read, I liked. Here goes
Sorry you had trouble commenting – thanks for trying again!
Love the title of this post. I don’t really collect anything any longer (photos of my kid maybe) but I still have a bag of stickers. They’re probably worth money at this point right? I also have a jar of coins from places I’ve visited…
These days I’m collecting wrinkles! And keeping them on my face so that I can see them whenever I want 😀
OH! I used to collect corks from wine bottles. I’d write the name and the date on them. The idea was to make a bulletin board from them. I never did and eventually threw them all away.
What an excellent and fun post!
Maybe we can trade stickers in a few weeks. But wrinkles – yeah, they suck. I’m collecting them too, against my will. I just call them laugh lines and slop on some anti-aging cream.
DANA!! I had that keychain, too!! Oh my gosh, the memories this post brought back. I so wish I still had my sticker albums. Seriously, this post was so fun. Thanks for the blast from the past. I love nostalgia. 🙂
Wow, it seems like all teenage owners of that key chain went on to be fabulous bloggers! I love nostalgia too, as long as it’s not cluttering up my house.
No more collections for me! I have way too much crap. I am trying to simplify and downsize, not add! 🙂
I can’t imagine you have room for any collections with all your kids and animals, Michelle 🙂
Ha ha, Ok, well age is just a number! 😉
That’s cool that you still have that sticker collection. I used to collect pogs. Remember those? If you had an awesome slammer, man you ruled the playground!
Today I collect coffee mugs.
I wasn’t familiar with pogs so I looked them up. Yeah, you are younger than me, Heather – those pogs were popular when I was in college. Bleh.
That looks like a car key. Remember when car keys could be copied? I had one like that for my mom’s Nissan Sentra. I used to collect refrigerator magnets – random ones and ones from places I visited. Once ABC leapfrog magnets entered the scene I stopped that. I like coffee mugs too but you can run out of room with that one. If I see one that makes me stop in my tracks then I have to think of which one at home I’m going to part with.
I like that, Kenya – don’t buy a new one unless you get rid of an old one. And I think you figured it out – I used to have a Nissan Sentra! I bet that’s the old key. Mystery solved!
I wrote a post for tomorrow and it is about how I hate collections. I was worried I would offend someone but I think you just gave me brave. 🙂
LOL Jean – I hate collections too. I’ll check out your post tomorrow.
Oh good! I hope this was ok to prepost for Theme Thursday. Posting every other day works better for me, and a Thursday post screws that up.
I collected spoons that my dad got in airports on business trips! Kids are weird.
Yes they are, Sarah. And sometimes they stay weird as adults.
I collect teacups. My favorites are ones that say their made in Occupied Japan. I want to start collecting cake stands as well.
See, now those are grown up things to collect. Very cool. And very breakable – teacups would not be good for me to collect. I broke a bowl unloading the dishwasher today.
If shoes and purses are “collections,” then can I get people to start buying them for me too?
Absolutely! Good luck with that, Erica.
I had a massive keychain collection when I was a teenager. Not sure why, since it was impossible to ever use all of them! I also had that exact keychain!
You are the second person to say that, Stacey! Obviously we both have awesome senses of humor 🙂
Interesting that you lost interest when people started bringing you items back. I collect shot glasses and key chains from places I travel. I always have key chain from the last place I visited on my key ring. The thing is, I only want them IF I WENT ON THE TRIP!!! I had to make that clear! I feel you on that. I never ran into that problem because would ask before hand.
That’s exactly how I felt, Joi. I didn’t make that clear though, so I had tons of shot glasses from random places I’ve never visited. I would make that clear now, but back then I was too chicken to say “stop bringing me back stuff from YOUR trips.”
I read this and thought it was Thursday!!! I had to check the calendar :)I think the older we get the less crap we collect because we are too busy cleaning up the kids crap.
Sorry to throw you for a loop, Kerri. And I think you are absolutely right on the crap collecting. Maybe I’ll start collecting again when I’m an empty nester. But probably not.
I’ve always been a collector – whether it was Russ troll dolls, toy horses, coins, stamps, etc.
The sad thing is that I see it transferring onto my daughter. I count her toys every night. I put them all back together in their sets. And if she has say, five out of the six My Little Pony main characters, I make sure she completes her set. And I get as excited as she does for new toys.
I think I’m pathetic!
You’re not pathetic – I find it endearing. Mostly because I can see myself doing the same thing. I like closure – the completing of a collection. Just wait until Des starts collecting boy toys – you may not find it so exciting. Or maybe you will!
I’m still laughing about trading the sticker for boots!!!
I collected key chains and when I went to college I turned them into my curtains – took a sheet and stitched a ribbon for each key chain – classy!!!
Now I collect shoes (all types), purses (more selective here) and cook books (I am to the point now where I often end up with duplicates because I can’t remember if I have it – might have a problem!!!)
Do you have a picture of those curtains? That I have to see!
Those look like the stickers my mom gives out at the pediatrician’s office she works at. Want me to have her get some for you? 🙂 I used to have a whole slew of keychains too and now I collect koozies and postcards.
You joke, but it’s hard for me to resist the stickers at our pediatrician’s office 😉
Oh the sticker books! I had totally forgotten about them! I do, however, have puffy Smurf stickers in my desk drawer right now, thanks to my kids and their collections! 🙂 Thanks for the laugh!
They still make them? Wow. I may have to go get a few. Glad I made you smile today, Kim.
I used to collect stickers, too. Now the only thing I collect is music boxes. I started that when I was younger and used to get a new one every Christmas. Now, the new ones are few and far between, but I still have and enjoy the collection. And shoes & purses are definitely NOT crap! 🙂
I started collecting music boxes too – I have one. But it plays our wedding song, so I love it. Not as much as I love my shoes, though!
I used to collect snow globes. I am not a big collector anymore, though. Kind of sad. Because it means I am a boring grown-up! 😉 My kids collect anything and everything!-Ashley
My niece collects snow globes – she loves when we bring her back one from our travels. And not collecting anything doesn’t mean you’re a boring grown up; it means you’re a mom who has enough crap in her house already!
Wow, you just so brought me back and I too had a sticker album and collection as a kid. God knows what happened to them but back then just like you I had them totally organized and had some really cool glittery one and puffy ones, too. Sadly no collections here nowadays, but would love a new pair of boots, too!! 🙂
I can’t wait to start wearing my boots! And I had to take my sticker album out of my daughter’s room – for some reason she had it. Probably considers it one of her treasures.
I still have my stuffed animal collection!
My husband and I used to have a shot glass collection too, but it got out of hand when people started giving us glass. There were some interesting choices, I’ll leave it at that! Today the only things I collect are piles of old running shoes and laundry. I just can’t seem to stay ahead of the laundry!
Laundry collecting is much less fun than shoe collecting, Nicole. NEW shoes. Old running shoes don’t count 🙂
You are so adorkable 🙂 I love this.
I used to be an avid collector of Things. I began with cuddly toys, moved on to keychains (I actually still have one, somewhere, with holographic background and a crazy smiley face, and exactly the same message as your one) then Beanie Babies (of which my sister and I had hundreds between us when I was about 13), then onwards into coins.
Which I still collect, albeit in a background kind of way. My Grandad was a coin collector, and had some very impressive albums. I’m beginning easy, with English coins, though I do have a big full of foreign, assorted coins.
I think I also collect books.
And I know I collect Irregular Choice shoes (though, as you rightly say, they don’t really count because they’re highly practical).
That is an awesome key chain, isn’t it? Coins and books are respectable collections. And I’ve seen a few of your shoes – highly practical for a tightrope walker, maybe. But I will never pass judgment on a woman and her shoes.
Truly 🙂 And it fits so well – for both of us, I think!
I shudder to think what a mess I’d make of tightrope walking! But at least it would be an excuse to wear the shoes 😉
(You know they sell flats and boots, too, right?)
Yes, I do 🙂
I’m like you – I used to collect stuff that now I look back and think it’s crap: wedding dolls (???), pencils, little plastic charms that clipped onto plastic necklaces or bracelets…now the only thing I could be accused of collecting is earrings or Birkenstock sandals. =)
Ha! Those are good things to collect – much better than wedding dolls 🙂
This post is so cute. I can picture little Dana collecting stickers and so forth and so on. I used to want to collect Barbies. I had them to play with and them I started to get a few collectible ones. They were stored in a detached garage in a two family house we rented. Our neighbor’s daughter got into it and started taking and playing with them. That is as close as I can remember to getting to collecting anything lol. 🙂
That little girl needed to learn some boundaries! Maybe you should start collecting stickers now, Brittnei – I have some I can give you 🙂