apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Well, thankfully the Tweety bird theme I that began when I was about 10 has finally come to an end. But the pigs just keep coming! Some things are actually cute and useful, but others...

i like penguins, you know, as an animal. so its happened to me on various occasions that my gifts have been penguin themed. once for christmas my lovely aunt just got me a box filled with anything penguin related, from lawn ornaments to notepads.

i like penguins, but i do not wish to wear or decorate my house with them!

My older sister once mentioned an adoration for pigs. We bought her everything pig themed from figures, posters, t-shirts, pots, plates and lamps. It lasted for years and she had a HUGE collection, and then one day she got a pug, and now has a new collection growing and the pig stuff got donated.

I am one such person who keeps getting cow print items. I don't mind if they're handy, but my family really needs to learn that stuffed animals at 29 are only going to get donated to my dog....

Reminds me of my mother.... I said once that I liked quince jam and fig jam. Now I have a lifetime supply. I said I wanted an authentic Irish fisherman sweater when she went to Ireland about 18 years ago and offered to bring back a treat. I didn't get a sweater, but I did get a Waterford cyrstal bud-vase. Now I get fisherman cable sweaters from LL Bean on a regular basis. And I hate them.

On the other hand, I love and have kept two things that she's given me in my lifetime: A Tahitian pearl necklace and the "Claude" chair in leather from HickoryChair.
http://www.hickorychair.com/product_detail.aspx?i=4539

There, that wasn't too hard to make relevant to home design.

I like skull-themed stuff so I tend to get inundated around Halloween. People don't seem to understand though that just because I like skull and crossbone earrings and t-shirts, doesn't mean I want to decorate my house like Halloween. I don't need purple skeleton lights or giant pressed glass pirate skull beer steins from Treasure Island in Las Vegas. Plus I'm a sculptor so people like to "surprise" me with bags of wishbones, mice skulls they found in their yard, etc. More recently, a friend added a new twist by asking me if I wanted to see her surgery sutures. Ohkay. I'm going to back away slowly now.

I haven't owned a cat for the last 14 years ... and I still get cat things from people. Most are appreciated. But a silver pin with three cats and the wording "one cat just leads to another" worn by someone who doesn't have a single cat is just ... odd.

Skulls. The problem is that it was really my husband's interest and my brother-in-law thought it was mine. And he likes to buy BIG gifts...I mean large in size. This has gone on for five years now.

But most recently he bought us an area rug, 5x7, black with a huge marijuana leaf in the center. The most ridiculous gift ever for a couple in their forties. Really, does anyone out there have a marijuana area rug displayed in their home? Other than a Seth Rogen character?

I have tried all sorts of tactful ways to say "enough". From "please, nothing larger than a bread box" to "gift certificates are appreciated". But it feels too controlling to tell people how they should gift, I should just be grateful, right?. I just donate most of it, such a waste of resources. Any advice?

I still keep getting cat things from people ... cat cards, cat magnets, etc. And I haven't had a cat in 14 years. Most of the stuff is appreciated anyway ... but a silver pin with three cats and the wording "one cat just leads to another" worn by someone without any cats is just ... odd.

I bought myself some Sanrio pens and ONE little Hello Kitty purse (which I only thought was cute because of the more sedate blue, white and tan color scheme.) The next thing you know, I have a Hello Kitty alarm clock, camisole/underwear set, rice cooker and watch.

turtles ran my sisters life for quite awhile. turtles turtles turtles...

Since i snowboard my mom thinks that she has to buy me anything that has it is in. I have a lot of snowman and or santa claus snowboarding x-mas ornaments. I have even gotten doubles. They don't make it on the tree....

My aunt used to have a thing for ducks. And then three christmases in a row she got only ducks, from everyone, so now she asks for books.

I have cats so people give me cat cards (ok), cat books (never read them) and someone offered to buy me a subscription to Cat Fancy magazine but I put my foot down.

I make a point not to tell anyone that I collect anything, so this won't happen to me! I do have a cat (and animal figurine) collection of sorts, but I never go out of my way to tell anyone, hey, I collect cat stuff... I hope my bf doesn't rat me out. :-)

Now, when word got around that I love to read, well, Barnes and Noble giftcards are awesome to collect!

Oh my god.

I decided when I was three years old that dolphins were my favourite animal.

By the time I was twelve, this is what my bedroom looked like:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/alcathradiel/mess1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/alcathradiel/mess2.jpg

I have never purchased a single dolphin ANYTHING in my life.

When I was about fifteen I went on a total purge and got rid of most of it, with the exception of a couple of the more sentimental pieces, but Oh. My. God. People still buy me dolphins.

A couple of years ago my Mom bought a wooden giraffe made in Kenya that she really really loved, and was absolutely gorgeous. Cue everyone buying her giraffes!

My husband is that way with me and books. I read one freakin Augusten Bouroughs book (Running with Scissors) and all of a sudden I have his entire life's collection. Then I read a David Sedaris book and he got me 4 DS books for Christmas. Now I make it a point to never mention to him an author I like.

You have not experienced hyper-kitsch until you've spent your twenties as a Goth with a little Lithuanian mama who gifts you with... things... meant to approximate a style that befuddles her. The horror.

I started to like frogs (as an animal) in college, so now I have a frog collection.

My family and friends have a running obsession with bacon, so we get bacon jelly beans and pictures of fatty bacon burgers. That one is fun!

People are giving you all crap you don't want because you aren't telling them about the crap you do want. There is nothing wrong with hinting about stuff you want "Oh darn, my esspreso machine has died, Mom"

I, er, collect money. So feel free y'all to help add to my collection!

These are all so funny. I guess people are just desperate to find remotely relevant gifts.

For years, I gave my mother frog-themed gifts that she apparently didn't want, and she gave me rooster-themed gifts that I didn't want.

Eventually we both confessed, and we've now moved on to gift certificates for each other. At a certain point, we might just transition to cold, hard cash.

i liked Betty Boop when I was young, and so I always get tons of Betty Boop stuff.

I love Halloween, so you can imagine what sorts of gifts come my way. I don't particularly want my place to look like the Haunted Mansion all year (as much as I love the HM), so I've gotten a little more vocal about what sorts of things I DO want. It took a while, but it's finally working.

i got a furby for christmas this year.

Reading this, I am so glad I come from a cash family. ;)

I am in veterinary school so you can just imagine that everyone I meet thinks that I need some tacky animal figurine or sweater with kittens on it. I love WORKING with animals, but prefer to dress and decorate more fashionably... maybe I should tell people I collect Eames chairs and see what happens ; )

I study Parrots.. sometimes I ask myself WHY I choose to work on the TACKIEST animal known to man for my masters is beyond me. Sigh

I had a brief Betty Boop phase about 10 years ago. I mostly liked (and wanted to emulate) her curvy womanly body, flirty personality, pouty lips and retro style. Shortly there after, I realized that most everyone else that liked her was a middle aged biker (hope I don't insult anyone with that generalization). It took me years to convince my dad that I didn't need a Betty Boop figurine collection. I actually just got an email from a friend of my moms asking if I wanted a Betty Boop bomber jacket. YUCK!

My husband was a coke drinker in high school. Now, 15ish years later, his significantly older half sister gets him coke collectables for every holiday. I have to wait a few months for them to collect dust before I can convince him to send them off to Goodwill.

In both of these cases, I agree that the gift giver just had no idea what to give so they were grasping at straws.

I think I told someone once that I needed a teapot. Before I knew it, I had about 40 of them. I'm now down to a reasonable ONE teapot.

I also have a mask collection, started by a friend, but I actually do like the masks. I have about 20 of them, and I've purchased 2 of them myself. Some of them are very cool!

My mother went to visit a friend on his deathbed. She asked him if he had anything he wanted to say and he grabbed her arm to steady himself while he imparted the following urgent message: "Never tell anyone that you collect something." His apartment was filled to the brim with mickey mouse paraphernalia. True story.

And... really... how can anyone top yollo's post?

Agreed... never tell anyone you collect anything. Unless it's cash.

Oh, god, it's dinosaurs at our house! My husband loved them as a child, and now he studies evolutionary biology, so... Granted, we had dinosaur wedding cake toppers, but still! Every time I turn around there is another dinosaur in the house!

*blush*

i love my cows and cow-ania...

I love my two cats dearly, but with two clients who are crazy cat ladies, I've been inundated with cat stuff every birthday and christmas since I started working for them. Yes, clients, I adore your cats almost as much as my own, and I'm happy to cat-sit when you're away, but I do not want my own cat stuff collection. I'll *cough* admire *cough* yours from afar.

Oh, wow, this hit home for me. The phases of stuff I have been inundated with:
-cat stuff. I liked cats when I was a kid and so got cat stuff well into adulthood.

-Marilyn Monroe. Made the mistake of mentioning i liked her. From about 15-22 I got posters, dolls, ornaments, books, even a life-sized stand-up! Now where do you put that?

-candles. For years, my Mother-in-law would only buy me large numbers of stinky candles. Scented stuff gives me a headache and kills my sinuses.

-vanilla scented bath stuff. One year all three of my sister-in-laws and my mother-in-law gave me bath stuff. We joked that they were trying to tell me I stunk!

I still get the bath stuff unfortunately, which I re-gift or donate, but most of the other stuff has gone by the way side.

Pink flamingos. It was the 80s...

For about ten years, my relatives have been under the impression that I collect frog stuff. They haven't totally inundated me, though, and the last frog mug I received was actually relatively cool, so I don't mind too much. Coffee/tea mugs are something I actually do try to collect--I don't like matching mugs, and I drink so much tea that I never feel like I have enough.

My stuffed animal collection, however, is shamefully large, but I love them all too much to do anything about it. This is one area in which I fear I shall never grow up.

This happened to my friend with penguins... mentioned them once as a kid and was inundated for years. She's finally gotten rid of all the penguin stuff and I'm not allowed to mention it to anyone lest it begin again.

There was a period of a few years when everyone bought me candles, because I liked interesting, handcrafted candles..... all of a sudden I had more votives from the dollar store than I knew what to do with, and these ugly rainbow taper candles that still have not been burned to this day.

Also, I enjoy the scent of lavender, but I am very particular as to what kind of lavender scents I enjoy - basically, the more natural it is, the better I like it. A few years ago I got this bath set of the smelliest chemical lavender products I'd ever seen. They barely even smelled like lavender - just like chemicals and sugar. I quietly informed my mother to stop telling people I like lavender, lest I buy her cheap vanilla-scented products in revenge.

My poor, poor grandma at some point expressed an admiration for hummingbirds.... She's too darling and midwestern and polite to stop people from getting her the earrings, sweatshirts, stained glass crap from every gift shop around the world, art prints, pillows, salad bowls, welcome mats, flags, car seat covers, pens, it goes on and on and on..... all with same posed ruby throated little guys. I asked her in my late teens if she actually even liked any of it anymore. She deeply blushed and ran into the kitchen to get me more cookies.




When I was a teen, I loved anything with a tropical scent. I used suntan oil as perfume and lived for coconut shampoo. On my 16th birthday, my aunt got me pina colada flavored lube accidentally, thinking it was lotion. I told her about it 4 years later and she hasn't gotten me any bath (or sex) products since.

I went through a very brief bunny phase during my teens. That was sort of easy to get out of, I just didn't like most of what I ended up with and ordered it to stop. My mother knows my favorite color is blue, however. Blue does look good on me, but that doesn't make me like every scarf and sweater and pair of slippers she can find. Here is something kind of ugly - and it comes in blue! My mother also thinks I have cornier taste in things than I do. I don't think I'm hard to shop for, but I guess I must be. She is the most likely to buy me a sweatshirt with kittens on it. Before Christmas, she tried to give me some oven mitts with snowmen on them (wasn't a gift, she just cleaned them out of her kitchen last fall and brought them along at Thanksgiving). I'm sorry, these don't fit. Please take them back. Clearly if she doesn't like something anymore, it makes her think of me. Which is irritating.

Nothing beats yolio's story though. I took my lesson from the bunny thing, and made it known just that I have cats doesn't make me like all cat things or any kitty cat things. My dad is also pretty involved in a craft hobby for such a long time and put stuff on hold at his hobby shop that he actually wanted to eliminate wasteful good intentions on novice stuff which is a great idea to learn - people who know you do something is sometimes worse than when people just think you collect upon some theme. This is the kind of thing that must be rough on musicians.

My friends kept giving me kitschy acorn things. Just because the name of my house is Acorn Cottage does not mean that I collect acorn paraphenalia. I do not want to have acorns all over the house. I've been pretty vocal about it for the last few years and the acorns are tapering off, though the vintage acorn charm bracelet was really nifty, and is something that I can/will actually wear. (I do have a collection of acorn earrings which I enjoy), but no more ceramic napkin rings please...

A BIG theme.
My mother-in-law thinks bigger is better. This means presents like the faux-pizza-oven, the fish smoker, the large not-humorous beer sculpture....
Oy Vay

My Grandma died before I was born, and when I moved out of home, my mum gave me a big solid old wooden spoon that grandma had used to make her jam with - complete with the jam stains. I love cooking with it.

Then I picked up at a few more old wooden spoons at some antique stores - then I mentioned to a friend that I had accumlated a few. They then gave me one that was an old family friends mothers (a few generations back) - and then I had a collection.

It's kinda sweet when someone gives me a wooden spoon that someone has used for years - . This part of collections I like - the sentimentality and passing on of well worn and used items - that I can continue to use every day!

C

Since we live at the beach in South Carolina, my sister wears flip-flops year-round. She hates the confines of shoes and socks and just loves WEARING flip-flops. Unfortunately, my grandma got the impression that she would love ANYTHING with flip-flops on it. It has resulted in some interesting gifts.

As I child, I collected Dreamsicle figurines. I got them for every holiday from every friend and relative. My mom always distributes my wish-list to her family, so when I went to college, I simply asked that she politely say that I was no longer collecting the figurines and offer a short list of other items I would rather receive. This worked very well.

My boyfriend keeps getting Coca Cola themed decor items from his mother... they're very cute, but a bathroom can only have so much Coke in it!

Tell that to the boys in Chelsea.

What, no Badtzmaru fans here?

I have an entire box of Pluto (Mickey's dog) paraphernalia in my basement. I still like Pluto, but I don't need 12 stuffed animals, figurines, S&P shakers, etc., etc. This started b/c my lovey when I was 2-6 was a Pluto. I'm 32 now. I'm hoping someone might buy from eBay if I get around to it one day.

The problem begins, I think, when others begin to use a "collection" as an excuse to be lazy. Instead of seeking out quality, beautiful things that fit the bill, they stop looking as soon as they find the first cheap, plastic (toilet seat cover!?!?) thing that has an image of the "collectible" imprinted upon it.

Yes. I received a toilet seat cover. This was the tipping point. I was unable to receive it gracefully and now I am no longer inundated with useless collectible crap.

So...it's nothing like skulls or cows or marijuana prints, but...my husband's a chef. And he likes the Iowa Hawkeyes. And that's what he gets. For birthdays, Christmas, Father's Day, even EASTER. His mom's fall back present is always something that has to do with cooking. My complaint is that, since he cooks for a living, he's kind of anal about the tools he uses. So when she buys him knives, pots and pans, and other cooking utensils, they just sit and collect dust. He already has eveything he needs, and it's good quality. Plus, like I said, he's REALLY picky about the tools he uses. One time, she gave him a Hawkeyes grill set, complete with branding iron. It even had the most offensive black and gold apron and toque.

Rudness saves a lot of grief! The very first time I get something I don't like, themed or not, I profusely thank the giver and then tell them, sadly, it's not to my taste -- can they return it? I make sure they know I appreciate them and their thought, but that it didn't work out. I refuse to keep the gift. If it's mailed, and I can't give it back, I take it to Goodwill. I do NOT keep stuff around just because someone gave it to me. And I always tell people I love chocolate! (Unfortunately I love MILK chocolate, and people seem to love giving dark and white, but it's way easier to unload chocolate than "Precious Moments" figurines!)

I totally agree with Speck on this. I collected owls for quite some time, and it de-evolved over the years from fabulous wood-cut prints and delicate Christmas tree ornaments to wind-up dolls and cartoon stuffed owls. I finally had to have an "ok that's enough!" conversation with the family...

oh the Eames chairs thing works, totally. everyone knows that I'm very-very interested in chairs and design - so this Christmas/birthday (they're close for me) I got 2 miniature Eames lounges (one white, one brown). Prior to that I got other miniature chairs, poster of chairs from Blue Ant (love it!), books about modern chairs, and books about modern design. Love all of those! No life sized chairs yet, unfortunately.

It works for me. Thankfully (unfortunately?) the subject of 50s design and chairs leads to most things about those topics to be either very well designed, or out of the budget of gift-giving.

For some reason my family thinks I'm into tribal african stuff. Like the wooden giraffe statues and stuff. And tie-dye (that was when I was 14, people, that was over 10 years ago, and I've moved on!)