We all collect things from travels, thrift finds, and who knows what else. We’re sure we need them in our lives, but we realize while trying to put them up… they’re actually trinkets and not too terribly necessary. But they are memories, and we don’t want to lose them. So how do you go about displaying them together without it looking like a cluttered mess?

• Play with height: If everything is eye level you get clutter, an easy way to keep from doing this if your stuff is all the same height is to use books or old full journal to stack your stuff up. It gives it interest, and you can put little things on the layers too, like my random stone and glass animals. Height gives your shelves a more thought out appearance and keeps the eyes from getting over whelmed.
• Cluster: Don’t cluster by color unless you’re doing complimentary- when things are all the same color they get lost. Don’t cluster by size for this same reason. In fact, cluster the opposite of these things, and you can cluster by trip and our relevance to each other.
• Glass it up: I love putting things in glasses! I have my sea shells from St. Martin in little martini glasses and Mardi Gras beads in a hurricane glass I got a drink in from Bourbon Street! It keeps all those little things contained and where you can see them!
• Mix Materials: Don’t just layer glass and glass, mix wood, plastic, pottery, you name it, it gives it texture and interest!
• Every Other: Mine are floating shelves so this isn’t usable in mine, but if you’re doing it on a bookshelf, use a shelf for books and then one for trinkets and then one for books, that way you get function out of things too and it doesn’t seem like your collecting souvenirs.