One day you wake up, and you're 30, and you take a good long look at your life and think, "How in the world did I end up with so many tiny baby deer? When did this start?"
- 1982: When I was little, anytime we were on our way to or from my grandma's house or my mom's school, my parents would drive a block or two out of the way so I could see the deer. Not live deer (this being, after all, Chicago), but concrete lawn ornament deer. Thrilling! From age 2-4, I couldn't get enough of those deer, and they would considerately slow down and sometimes even stop so I could gaze & gaze.
- 2007: The December issue of Martha Stewart Living featured a story entitled "Within a Wooded Glade". I fell head over heels for those tiny plastic & ceramic deer. Ten minutes earlier, if you'd kindly offered me a little deer I probably would have said, "No, thank you", but now I had to have them. I put the word out, and for the last three years the deer have come rolling in. I found one of them myself at an antique mall with my parents, but the rest of the collection has been gifts.
- 2010: I now have what I would consider to be a lot of tiny deer, and love each and every one of them. They're usually all packed away in a small shoebox, with the exception of whichever one is the current favorite. Most are from Japan, most are ceramic or porcelain, a few are plastic. Some are sweet & naturalistic, and some bear a mysterious resemblance to elk, or whippets, or bunnies.
So, what led to your collections?
ANOTHER ANIMAL COLLECTION: Elephants Abroad: A Dispersed Collection
Images: Personal deer collection photos 1,4 by Tess Wilson, Martha Stewart deer feature 2, 3, produced by Kevin Brainard, via ljcfyi
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small framed silhouette pictures...inspired by Martha stewart's magazine.
Ah, Sauna & Stephen from Something's Hiding in Here have a pretty amazing deer collection.
Me, I've been considering purchasing a brass moose statue, hahaha.
Just wait til you're sixty!
I have a packed-away collection, and each time I take it out and look through it is like reading a diary, because each item has a history. It's very precious.
Owls! I love owls!
When I was in high school (1997), my mom gave me a set of antique owl salt and pepper shakers. It was a boy and a girl owl, and the girl was leaning into the boy, kissing his cheek with her eyes closed.
Since then I've been collecting owl salt & pepper shakers and owl figurines!
Star Wars figures! I was a young boy when Star Wars first appeared. It left an impression on me. Now over 30 years later, I am collecting them and sharing the experience with my 7 year-old son. He still has trouble understanding that Darth Vader is Luke and Leia's father. Lol! Great topic.
all sorts of animals, I can never choose just one: pigs, goats, owls, fox, doves, sheep, cows, chickens, hedgehogs, deer, etc.
I love collections!
I bought a lot of yellowware ceramics back in the 80's. I have quite a few pieces and ones that you can't find easily anymore. When I moved, I packed them and are still in the boxes. I need to find a beautiful cabinet or hutch to display my collection.
Oh this drives me crazy... years ago, my grandmother gave me a pair of ceramic deer salt and pepper shakers, but being a teenager, I cared little for them and now they are lost. What I would do to get them back again...
On a whim when I was about 10, I bought a thimble in a gift shop in Gettysburg, declaring to my parents that I was going to start collecting them. I was in a sewing phase, which quickly petered out, along with my thimble collecting plan. Apparently, I never filled my Dad in on the change, because for almost 20 years now he's been buying me thimbles every time he goes somewhere. Most of them are cheap porcelain but a few are really nice. My favorite is sterling silver inlaid with turquoise, which he bought on the Indian reservation near my Uncle's home in Utah. I'm not super crazy about the thimbles themselves, but I love that he thinks to buy them when he travels. It makes me feel like I'm still Daddy's little girls. Also, I've recently freed them from the various baskets and boxes I've stuffed them in and put them in a big apothecary jar. They look pretty neat there, if I do say so myself.
I have a ceramic cat collection that I keep on display in my bedroom. My grandmother used to have a ton of small ceramic vases and figurines. She told me that I could choose one to take home...and I immediately chose the cat. After all these years I've accumulated many cats to add to my collection, most were given to me by friends and family. Once about 10 years ago, my friend was purchasing an old picture at a local antique store. I spied an adorable ceramic kitty and asked the old lady who minded the shop how much she wanted for it, she just smiled and said I could just take it! Thats just how it seems to go with this collection...people just want to give me their ceramic cats! By the way, I still have the original figurine that my grandmother gave me...by some miracle, I have not broken it over the years!
I have a pretty large ceramic owl collection myself, started a couple years ago with a fantastic 1970s plastic owl clock a friend found for me off Craigslist, and ever since then I haven't been able to stop collecting. My prize owl is a 2 foot tall one scored from a thrift store for $10 (large ones are hard to find)
Did owls in the 70's. Gave them up. Did unicorns in the 80's. Gave them up, too. Once did daisies... Sculptures of hands... crystal ball paperweights... I don't even remember all the things I've collected over time. Now, it's figurines of gods and goddesses of any cultures I can find... ideally museum replicas of archeological finds, but R2D2 figures in as well! No taller than about 10 inches, except for one or two of them. Egyptian, Hindu, Minoan, Christian, etc. etc. I have all mythologies covered in my pantheon.
Oh I collect everything! My deer hoarding haha..started with an antler found in our backyard! We live on the coast and there are sooo many adorable deer here.. Painted and waiting for its match.. :) LOVE your collection!