I have so many collections and a very tiny house. I am about to go through the process of paring down my collections and keeping only what I really love. For example, I love vintage kitchy cat figurines. I have some truely beautiful ones from the 1950's and 1960's. I also have some so-so ones from who knows when. I was looking at them the other day and realized that I really needed to purge and only the keep the items that are truely spectacular. I also have boxes of "finds" I've collected over the years that are gathering dust in my garage. I think that letting go will be very difficult. My hope is that I will be able to find good homes for my collections with people who will truely enjoy them. I know it's just stuff, but in a way it is also memory and hope and happiness.

Books. I just don't have the space. I kept my cookbooks and a few shelves of other favourites, but converted nearly all my fiction into ebook form and bought a Sony Reader. Now, I have 500 books in my Sony library and they take up no space :)

I've seriously streamlined my books. I'm a fairly voracious reader and I've found that keeping just my favorite books on hand and hitting the library for the rest works much better for me. One year I also went to my local book bazaar, bought a bunch, read them through the year, kept one or two and donated the rest back to the book bazaar the next year.

Also, I'm considering condensing my DVDs down to a cd case and getting rid of the cases. Much easier to stick a black cd case in a drawer and free up shelf space for art and other things I really love.

i got rid of my porcelain dolls when my mother dropped them off at my house (no thanks!) and i've been gradually decluttering my collection of owl items. my husband recently asked me to craigslist his comic books (haven't gotten to it yet!).

i've also been wanting to let go of my grandmother's collection of blue ridge stoneware, and my "nana's" collection of fransiscan apple dishes (my grandfather's step-mother, who i never met). emotionally, i'm completely ready. however, this stuff is in several boxes and the work of unpacking, washing, sorting and selling is low on the priority list, since i have a basement. they just wait for me down there.

I'm not really much of a collector, but I've learned to streamline my book collection, and I now recycle/get rid of magazines rather than hanging onto them forever.

I still regret ditching the rock and mineral collection I had as a 12 yr. old ... just about everything else I've held on to!

Scaling down is good, for many people. Some folks go overboard on collections--or more than one collection.

Did I read this part right? All your artwork is in flat-file storage? If so, what good is it doing in there? Do you have no artwork on the walls? To cheer you? To inspire you? To add dashes of color?

I think collections are only chaos if a home just looks like there's cr*p piled all around. I never feel chaos when I look at the grouping of five of my father's cameras, my arrangement of family photos or the array of 10 art-glass paperweights lined up along the fireplace mantel.

Records. Down to just a box kept in the closet. I have a large CD collection, so I'm still listening to music -- and it's all about the music, right? -- but I still have an irrational emotional attachment to the records that are left. I'll part with them someday. Just not now.

Ex-Husbands -
I'm so glad I sent them away...

I collect 8-track tapes. At one point I had over 1,000 tapes, but over the years I've pared down my collection because I moved into a much smaller home and no longer have the room for all of them. I'm only keeping those tapes that I love and listen to...the rest are gone or on their way out.

I'm getting ready to ditch my 300 Pez dispensers. I loved them in high school and college, but now they've stayed in boxes my last two moves.

Hmm...I think the only collection I've had was Beanie Babies when I was a kid. My sisters and I had a combined collection, and I think they are still in a box in my parents' garage. Other than that, I've never really had an interest in collecting things.

The greek red-figure pottery was just collecting so much dust, and all those Rembrandts, beautiful, but really! And the Rodin sculptures were hard to mow the lawn around. Did keep my priceless collection of snuff boxes though.

By the way, it is fascinating to hear Mayra Kalman talk about all her collections, carefully stored in her NY apartment.

I havent' really collected anything since I was a kid. But I totally let go of the Beanie Babies and Calico Kittens figurines. (Although I think my dad packed them away to store indefinitely.)

I still have a small collection of old banks though.

Money, too hard to come by these days.

Castle figurines. I've edited the collection to the best 10 or so.

I have pared down my collection of frog figurines to the bare minimum. And my husband is threatening to get rid of me if I bring home any more Boston Terrier artwork.

I used to collect collections. When I was younger I collected smiley face objects, turtles, key chains, rocks, keys, books, pogs, erasers and the list goes on. Currently, I collect books, keys and sneakers.

Strangely enough my hoarding only happens with books and artsy/crafty stuff. I do at least twice yearly purges of books and greeting card/gift giving stuff I don't use. THe latter usually results in my buying cards/ribbon/watever that I like so much I neither give for gifting or use them in my own unworthy projects.

And though I log ago ditched dvd cases for a few binders, I'm still torn about my cd collection. I hate the space and weight of them all, but I've suffered enough drm problems to want to keep them. And speaking of digital, I'm slowly growing a collection of external hard drives as I try to minimize the chance of losing my huge collections of itunes and other content I don't want to redownload or otherwise reassemble when there's a problem.

I let go of my book collection over a period of seven years. I left grad school with 31 boxes of books, and then steadily but not shockingly realized which ones meant more to me, and which ones could go. I now own only something like a dozen books, but still read all the time, thanks to libraries, and also buying books and then passing them along to friends. I had a sweet collection of paperweights but gave those away over a period of three months before a move.

Cookbooks; All the fictional books I was going to read but never got around to; Music on CD's or LP's; Other people's collections that I inherited; Gifts I hid away (they became a dust catching collection of their own in the closets & attic!); and, finally, Fair-weather friends

Fictional, oops, Fiction!

pammy, i think they meant the art that they're not displaying is in flatfile storage.

That's an awesome idea. Rather letting the art collection grow bigger and bigger on the walls and turn into clutter rather than pieces you love, you can put older pieces away and once you're ready to switch, you can always go back to them.

I collected hello kitty stuff in my teens. It was all junk, but it made me happy. Though I sometimes i'll indulge in the occasional figurine or kitty shaped food items, I stay away.

I digitized pretty much all of my music and movies (though my boyfriend still has DVDs and video games floating around the house).

Other than that, I had some random toys/Barbies/action figures that I sold in a garage sale and on ebay a couple years ago--I kept one or two that had actual sentimental value, but got rid of all the ones I just liked for the sake of liking them.

Joanna C, I am fascinated by this digitized book situation you describe. Was it expensive to convert? Did you have to repurchase everything? I study literature, so I don't know if that would work for me, because having a hard copy to write notes on is really useful--but I just moved, and good grief are books heavy. It would be nice for them to be digial.

@JefferyK
Records are still functional! Record players aren't all THAT expensive, and they're definitely better than cd's in my opinion! You should bring them out of the closet and give them a spin again! Our collection is about 160 and still growing!

I just move into bigger houses so I can keep everything! I love my vintage cameras...

We are in the process of packing to move and I have gotten rid of my vinyl albums from the eighties. I had a lot of exclusive and limited editions but they took up space and I don't feel like carrying them to our new place. I have also given up my majority of my PS1 games and plan to start on my PS2 games.

I actual feel liberated! Next are my comic books! :-o

pins and old movie stubs!
I have them in a box somewhere in my attic. Plan to get rid of them soon.

I've just never let my collections get out of hand. I have just enough vintage cameras, just enough vintage Pyrex (the good and rare pieces) and just enough Dunnys to be satisfied. And it's just every now and then that I add to them, it isn't constant. I am obsessed with thrifting though, hence, the etsy shop (cassielynne.etsy.com)

Sneakers!

I won't ever get rid of them. They'll never get worn out since I could wear a different pair every day for 2 months...

Awesome bepsf! I have no collections. Purchased books are usually gone after I read them (I prefer the library). Maybe I would consider the shear volume of candles and candle holders I had in college a collection. If so, they were gone years ago after about the third move. In fact, I find collections fascinating. I'm looking at empty table tops in my new place, saying to myself, I've got nothing memorable or sentimental to display. I'm shockingly okay with that.

I'll admit that I'm still holding on to my collections, particularly my book collection. I have gotten rid of lots of books in the past by giving them to friends and exchanging them for store credit at used bookstores, but I still really regret having done that. I miss the books I no longer own.

My other collections, like my collection of creepy/cute figurines and my art collection, are strictly curated and therefore grow very slowly. Maybe one day they will need some pruning, but that won't happen for many years.

English major. Music & Movie freak. Sentimental fool. Daughter of a pack rat. My natural tendency is to keep EVERYTHING. I've been forcing myself over the last few years to get rid of things. I just moved into a place where I have a small bathroom, a bedroom just barely big enough for my be, a tiny reach-in closet (I've had a walk-in for 9 years) and a bit of pantry space in the kitchen. The rest is in storage, and my project this year is going to be to gradually empty it out. I'm planning to make a list of the items that are in storage that I want to keep (yearbooks, mom's albums, my kitchen aid mixer, etc.) and if I didn't remember to put it on the list, it's probably not important enough to keep: trash, goodwill or ebay, baby! Let's see if I can put my money where my mouth is.

I've only seriously started slimming down my collections after living together with my fiance. I've gotten rid of a lot of my childhood stuff that's been stuffed in boxes for years, past awards from high school, books, and my expansive LOTR collection. :) To some people, it may sound excessive to just clear out what many consider cherished memories of their youth, but it's actually allowed me to purge and to change and to grow. I've never regretted getting rid of the stuff. And yes, if I was being perfectly honest, part of the reason for my new-found love of de-stashing was to counter my fiance's many, many collections. :) (We're going to need a big house...)

As a kid I collected monkeys: toys, figurines, etc. I had over 100 monkeys at one point. Those are all long gone. I've cut my book collection by about 2/3 since college; the non-fiction mezzanine of the central library has become like a second home to me. I put most of my DVDs and CDs in slim jewel cases and threw away the bulkier cases. I glued my seashell collection to mirrors, so now it takes up vertical rather than horizontal space. The only collection I still pursue is vintage postcards. They don't take up much room.