4 TIPS FOR DISPLAYING YOUR COLLECTIONS IN YOUR DECOR
Your home should reflect the way you live, your passions, and evolve with your personal style. Creating a space surrounded by beautiful things you love is one of the best ways to express your own style and improve your quality of life.
A collection is born innocently enough, you find an antique piece that catches your eye, and place it in a special place at home. Soon, you see another one that you can't live without, and voila, a collection is born.
Infuse your home with your personality, collecting treasures that capture your heart and delight you and displaying them in an artful way creates a distinctive style all your own.
Here's the secret to displaying the pieces in your collection in an eye-catching way.
1. COLLECT THE THINGS YOU LOVE.
As a newly married young wife, my Mom gave me a beautiful porcelain little box. I loved it on sight, it was like nothing we owned at the time, and my love affair with miniature French porcelain Limoges and English enamelware boxes is still going strong.
To display them here at home, I group them on a silver tray. This is the trick for displaying a collection of small items. Grouping diminutive objects together gives them distinction. prominence.
2. Celebrate FAMILY HEIRLOOMS WITH YOUR NEW LOVES.
If you are fortunate enough to have inherited family heirlooms, display them with your collections!
When my grandmother left me her beautiful silver teapot, above with the wood finial and handle, and her antique blue & white tea caddy and diminutive tea cup, I knew they would be right at home in my little white cabinet filled with my own silver tea things.
Do you have a collection of small things that you would love to show off? When I inherited my grandfather and grandmother's silver napkin rings, it stirred up my love for antique silver napkins rings. Since then, I've collected some very special ones, and I didn't want to see them waning away in a drawer.
I found this beautiful antique display case, which is really just an antique frame with a wooden box built onto the box. The heavy glass pane can slide up and down in a slot where the two meet. Now I consider this a "work of art" which hangs in our living room for all of us to enjoy!
Collections will add a personal spark to your home! I assembled this collection of antique sterling topped vanity containers on a mirrored plateau in my bedroom because they sparkle and shine much more, all together! {Besides, they just like being together.} One belonged to my grandmother, the others I collected to sell in my FrenchGardenHouse shop.
3. GATHER SOUVENIRS OF MEMORABLE TIMES.
It's only natural to want to take something beautiful home as a memory of places you've traveled to. Collections are often begun when you travel, but there is no rule that they have to be touristy objects. {you know what I mean, right?}
If you love the beach, and nothing makes you happier than to think of long, sun-filled days by the water, why not celebrate those holidays with a collection of antique shell objects as well as shells? This small wall hung shelf has a collection of Victorian shellwork boxes, and shells and beach glass gathered on trips around the world.
In the same room, we placed an antique Victorian parian figure surrounded by shells. Curating a few beautiful displays to highlight your collection is the secret to success. Don't allow your collections to roam and wander all over your house!
4. Create STATEMENT DISPLAYS.
You want to create some visual WOW moments at home, and collections are a great way to do that! Our collections of antique etchings we bought on trips to Europe always draws compliments. They are muted enough not to steal all the attention from anything else I want to display on this little cabinet that houses our stereo equipment in our living room at FrenchGardenHouse.
Gathering all your favorite pieces together in one breathtaking presentation makes much more of an impact than parceling out one by one in a room.
Because I often have a selection of antique silver small pieces for sale at FrenchGardenHouse, {and I secretly love and enjoy them in our home for awhile before offering them for sale!}, displaying them on a huge antique platter ties them all together so they don't look tiny and "get lost" in the room.
This was one of my all-time favorite mantel displays in our guest bedroom.
The mantel is filled with a glorious array of antique Blue & White pottery Delft and Makkum pieces. To make this group even more engaging, the simple white cachepot and bright blue larkspur plant are the perfect accent for these sensational antiques.
This is another one of my all time favorites. I grouped my collection of antique ironstone and black and white French transferware pieces together in this French armoire with a few antique French Toleware pieces. Almost the whole display is black and white, but then I added the French red tole wine carrier in there for a little pop of fun! {I'm a fan of fun, you might have noticed!}
Sometimes, I rotate my collections. Here is the same armoire, this time holding our collection of antique French majolica. This display gives our room a whole different feel and look!
That's the beauty of decorating with collections, they add life, fun, interest to a room. They express your style and personal interests, And they can change the look and feel of your room at the same time.
If your goal is to create a home that reflects your own style and to refresh your existing rooms by adding a few show-stopping accessories, I hope you will check out our many antique decor accents.
Perhaps you will find something that will capture your heart and imagination, and jumpstart a collection of your own!
WHAT IS YOUR ABSOLUTE FAVORITE THING TO COLLECT? We'd all love to know!
Shop for the best in French Antiques, furniture with the patina of age, vintage accessories to delight you and your family & friends, and French Country utilitarian pieces. Treasures that make your home fresh, beautiful, inspirational and uniquely yours. Visit our shop FrenchGardenHouse.com
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Lidy
May 08, 2018
Kay, I am so happy to meet you! It sounds like we are kindred spirits in many ways. I love that your collections express your heartfelt warmth to everyone who visits your home. Thank you, Kay, for sharing a bit of your heart for your home and your guests with us. xo