Well... I also used to collect beanie babies, big time. They are now mostly in several large rubbermaid tubs, stuffed in a back closet. I do get out some of the holiday ones... I keep those handy. I use the Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas ones every year. I also collect something called "Rocky Mountain Pottery," also called ROMCO. This collection started by accident, when my in-laws got me a few pieces for Christmas about 2 years ago. I fell in love with it, and have significantly expanded my collection since then, both through buying pieces for myself and getting them as gifts from family. I only get the pieces with the pine cone pattern. This pottery was made in Loveland, Colorado, back in the 1960's through the 1980's, I think. The factory no longer exists so 99% of my collection has come from ebay. Here are a couple of pics I took last year when this subject came up here at the GW... Coincidentally, they are decorated for Halloween... This pottery goes really well in my house... hubby and I try to maintain a sort of rustic style and the pine cones fit in perfectly. Which brings me to my next collection... we collect "primitives" such as an old wood butter churn, wood buckets, old wash stand, old lanterns, etc. We also collect ceramic black bears from a place called Pigeon River Pottery, in Pigeon Forge, Tenessee. If you look very closely, you can see them on the top, right shelf in my first picture above. We bought the first bear when we were on our honeymoon, and have bought a bear each year for our anniversary. So we only have 4 for now, and hopefully they keep making them. We have decorated our kitchen in a black bear theme, which also goes with our whole rustic, lodge theme we have going. My husband has a fantastic collection of vintage baseball memorabelia. Everything from bobblehead dolls, to very old ball gloves (the kind with individual fingers), old cleats, magazines, puzzles, bats, catchers mask, baseball with red and blue thread, etc. Most everything is from 1960's or earlier. All his stuff decorates our office, so I am staring at all of it right now. In our next house, he plans to decorate the entire basement with his baseball stuff. He already has a bunch of stuff that he is storing to get ready for our basement someday... That's all I can think of for now... Buff

Hello ladies! After a long day at my craft show, I came home to a wonderful box from Anita! Wow, girl! I had no idea you could stuff so many fantastic things into one of these boxes!! Anita sent: Lots of lollipops - my kiddos love them! A bunch of daylily seeds 2 voodoo lily bulbs A Milk + Honey brug A Frosty Pink brug (OMG - I can't WAIT to grow these!!!) An agave - so cool - my first! A Commander In Cheif Asiatic Lily bulb An Easter Bonnet Lily bulb A Rhodos Asiatic Lily bulb A Kiss Me Kate Lily bulb (wow - I love all these lillies!!!) Rose Mallow seeds Crackerjack Marigold seeds Evening Primrose seeds Maltese Cross seeds 2 boxes of corn muffin mix and a recipe for Broccoli Cornbread (sounds yummy!) A garden trowel (I needed this - all my cheap ones have bent like crazy!) Pumpkin baking cups (always can use these!!) Lots of napkins A leaf sticker sheet A LOVELY flower plaque A Garden All - it looks fantastic! I'll bet this works great! A beautiful handcrafted dream catcher - wow, this is lovely! I will hang this in somewhere special! A beautiful rose flat - I'll need to put the flagpole back up on the porch! A dolphin windsock A Lucky Clover grow kit - awesome! A Sunflower Grow kit - very cool too! A wooden spoon (thanks - my Lily keeps taking off with mine!), wrapped in a beautiful fall colors towel! 2 Cappuccino lip balms - yummy!!! Wow - I hope I got it all! You packed an INCREDIBLE box, Anita! Thank you so very much! I feel like my box was so inferior now! Going now to hang up my beautiful dream catcher! Becki

I love the idea od a magnetized strip for knives, Pesky! I have wanted to have one of those for years and may just figure out a way to do it in the existing space one of these days! I have two knife holders in drawers. Works fine, but I lose that space and in my kitchen (galley-style), I hate to waste any space. As to shelf paper-I used to line cabinets, but we also have a hard finish on ours and I have found that it is easier to clean inside when I don't have shelf paper. Even the supposedly wipe-off liners seem to end up looking dirty. I do have liner in the bathroom linen closet where I keep all my toiletries (cosmetics, toothpaste, etc.) but that is because the shelves are not in such great shape. Time to repaint, I guess. Glasses are stored right-side-up.

Oh, I wish ours was a non-event snow wise. It keeps snowing and snowing. The guys just headed out with hopes the paved country road between us and the highway has been plowed since they got home awhile ago. Our son has an all wheel drive vehicle and he barely made it through only to get stuck in our neighborhood. Luckily a wonderful farmer, known to all as Grampa, and his son came along and pulled our son out and let hubby park at Grampa's place just up the highway from our turn off. Our county called all trucks in since it's blowing over the highways/roads as fast as they can clear them. It's advised that no one should be out unless it's an emergency. Hopefully they'll (hubby and son) make the two mile round trip without any trouble. It's been like this since just Christmas Eve. Reminds me of when I was kid and once it started snowing it kept snowing until Spring and then it thawed. Just wish everyone could work from home on days like this. Oh and we must have close to three feet of snow now if not more. It's quite beautiful though. I do hope you find what you're looking for. Moonshadow, what a day you had! You are braver than I am. Must be young. LOL.