Confessions of a Collector

I love to collect all things vintage.  I have long been a fan of white ironstone and USA's vintage line of pottery.  It all started with a vase that I took with me when I left home at 19 and it's continued on.  I don't actively look, but when I come across something I love, I buy it.  I come from a long line of collectors, the best being my grandfather who has a McCoy collection that would take your breath away.  We just recently saw it when we were visiting in Ohio and even my teenage girls were enamored by it.  

My latest fix is Italian and French canning jars.  I've been able to find them in my travels delivering paint in the east bay for about $2-$4 per jar.  Last year it was old Baby Ben clocks, working or not.

This stair wall that has taunted me for years because two years ago, I painted it with what was left over of one of the "all in one" latex primer and paint formulas.  It was awful and blotchy and why I lived so long looking at that wall when I could have just painted it over, you got me.  It took me all of 26 minutes to pull out my pot of Chalk Paint® in Old White, a roller and a blended fiber paint brush and get at it.  Here is the wall before.  

Thanks to Annie Sloan, I have learned to accept imperfection.  As a painting contractor, my results must be perfect, lines have to be straight, finishes must be blended, but I've grown into this imperfect soul now.  Enjoy this photo from my Annie Sloan fellow "stockist bff," Deborah Cooper-Ramos that she proudly displays on her workshop wall…"Beauty in Imperfection" by Annie Sloan.  I struggled with making the frames sit perfectly on my wall and then I just let go because there IS beauty in imperfection.  This is the workshop wall at Peinture in Costa Mesa, CA:

Here is my wall after, proudly displaying my collection of graphite sketches I'm so in love with right now.  I make paint deliveries twice a week to the bay area and recently stopped by a consignment store and scored two sketchings by an artist out of Oakland.  Apparently, she recently died and suffered from dementia.  I was honored to display two of her sketches on my wall, both still life.  Do you collect?  What do you collect and where do you go to find your collections?