When I told my non-scrapbooker friends that I’m doing a project on collections, they looked at me and said, “You’re so weird!”  OK, so tell me something I don’t know.  Anyway, many of them say don’t collect anything, but after I’ve planted the seed in their heads, they ponder it over and come up with a plethora of things!

As for me, I’m a huge collector of hats.  And Dansko shoes (absolutely love them).  And costumes.  And because I’m a scrapbooker, I’m also a collector of paper, adhesives, letter stickers, photos and stories.

For this challenge, I’ve decided to showcase my hat collection.  It is my signature piece.  It makes me, me.  My friends make fun, but my hats always bring smiles to the faces of the many strangers I cross paths with.  I remember sitting at a restaurant enjoying my burger when this little four year old boy walks by and shyly whispers, “I love your hat.” and walks away.  It was the cutest thing because it was totally unexpected.

This layout was inspired by Lisa Dickinson’s recent Fun with Fonts blog entry on the WCS blog.  I love mixing fonts and when I saw Lisa‘s work, I was immediately inspired.  I don’t love my handwriting, but I thought I’d try to write the word on cardstock and cut it out with sharp scissors.  It was somewhat tedious, but I love the way it turned out!  And by the way, these photos are all self-portraits!

Here’s a look at some of the other contributors to this challenge.

Laura : She has an impressive collection of Starbucks cups.  I know because I’ve seen them, in person!  I love the framing of the photos within the black lines and the bit of detail at the top of the page.  Laura and I think alike because we both included hand-drawn + hand-cut words in the title of our pages.  Love the word love.

Emily : When I initially posted this challenge, Emily wanted to be excused from it (just like the students!)  because she could not come up with anything that she collects.  Now check out this awesome page below!  I love the hand-stitching frame and handwritten journal border.  Emily, where did you get those pretty flowers?

Felicia :  What an impressive collection of books!

The following are collections from people who do not scrapbook.  Thanks for sharing your photos.

Lisa : Wind-up toys

Villeneuve Family : Duckies

Kara : Cupcake cups, cookie cutters, Disney DVDs, and many others.  She actually has many collections even though she couldn’t come up with anything when I initially asked her.  This girl is crazy about cupcakes!  She’s got amazing baking skills — and she makes personalized birthday cupcakes for those she loves.

She loves to bake and decorate cookies, hence the crazy cookie cutter collection.  Who needs this many cookie cutters, anyway?  Oh wait, not pictured here is her collection of ice cream sandwich cookie cutters.

And she has an insane collection of DVDs.  Crazypants has enough DVDs to fill two bookcases — yeah, TWO!  And she watches them all over and over again.

Kara, you can no longer say you don’t have any collections.  You have plenty!!!