BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Budget Decor Displaying Collectables

My husband has a huge dragon statues collection and I was wondering if anyone has ideas about how I could display these. I've heard that you are supposed to organize items going across from larger to smaller on shelves and that you should scatter your collections about and not in just one place. I've tried the first one but the collections still looks "messy" and the second approach seems too impractical. I haven't found something that works for me yet. Any suggestions? I also have the same organizational problems for my teacup collection and my husband�s miniatures collection.

I have always read that you should group collections of the same type together. They have more impact that way. I think one of the best display items for certain collectibles is a glass door curio cabinet but they are expensive and they take up a lot of room. They do help keep the dust off, though and help prevent breakage. I had a piece of Lenox broken last week by one of my cats and I was not happy about it!

A shadowbox wall display, with individual niches, would be nice for your teacup collection. I have a collection of tiny cups and saucers, that once belonged to my grandmother, displayed this way. There is a plate groove on each shelf so the saucer can be stood up behind the cup. Shadowboxes come in all different sizes. You might want to try this.

I think I collect so many items, I have collections of collections!

I live in earthquake country, so first off, I make sure both I and the collection are not doing to have problems if we get a strong quake. No heavy stuff high up. Really valuable items might not get displayed (being safer in storage), or they will be in a case or securely hung on the wall. Museum wax is great for securing items on shelves and I make sure items on walls have proper hooks and not just a nail.

For standing items, I put them where I can. I have the top of my entertainment center as a display area. My kitchen cabinets have some room at the top, and my more kitschy stuff resides there. (PEZ items just totally brighten up a kitchen!) I've also got some items on the tops of bookcases, both tall and shorter ones.

For multi-sized displays, I tend to mix up my sizes, putting taller and larger items in back and smaller items in front, creating a little community.

The first time I saw my nieghbour's living room, it was paraded on the wall with xmas story leg lamps. 12 of them to be exact. She has a every collection of the unique and bizarre xmas story leg lamps you can ever imagined.I thought that was pretty cool.It kinda brought out the christmas mood and spirit when it lights up during the evenings. Im thinking of getting a dozen of those. Any thoughts?

By the way here is how it looks like:

http://petewpfong.typepad.com/uniquexmas4me/

This is an old thread, but I thought that it is perfect to bring up again right now with so many people doing holiday decorating.

This time of year common collections are small cottages, Santas, snowmen, angels, nutcrackers and so on.

Collections look great when amassed in one central area rather than spread all over the house. Try keeping them to one theme or color and vary the heights for more visual appeal. Even candles look great when grouped together in varying sizes and heights!

Do you collect anything particular each holiday and wonder what to do with that growing collection? Feel free to share your thoughts & pics here!

Donna <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />





Donna

What things do you collect for your home? How do you display them? On shelves? Tabletops? Walls?

I collect mostly dishes, teapots & pitchers. Well, I collect platters, too - big, little, round, square. I also collect chintz dishes and I have 4 sets of dishes we eat off - wait, I think it's 5 sets. Around the Christmas holidays I have 2 sets. I display my pretties on open shelves as accents to my rooms.

I'm a dishaholic - there - I said it.