Arts & Antiques By Dr. Lori - Family Collectibles Enliven Home Decor

January is the time of the year when home goods are featured for shoppers in stores and online. Why not use your cherished family heirlooms when you decorate or re-decorate your home? No family heirlooms are “too precious” for everyday display and enjoyment. Display these items proudly and creatively all around your home.

Highlight antique and vintage objects that remind you of family and friends of years past. Objects from events like family reunions, holidays, and vacations are great display pieces including old scrapbooks and photos in vintage frames. Consider having those old photos digitized and load them into a slide show photo frame. Pull out those old high school yearbooks, scrapbooks, and wedding albums. Give them center stage on the family room coffee table, on a side table on the lanai, or on a bedroom nightstand at the cabin.

Paper collectibles are fun to use as graphic and visually stimulating decorations. Like books, they are interesting to hold, read, and view. Fill a decorative box with old newspaper articles about your hometown, college campus, or favorite vacation spot, etc. Add old school report cards, class pictures, i.d. cards from previous jobs, hand drawn maps to vacation cabins, newspaper clippings, college i.d. cards, dog’s old collar or tags, expired library cards, etc.

Depending on the size of the box, it can be placed on a shelf by the hearth or on the floor near a comfy chair and then opened occasionally for some spirited chatter. Place another memory box filled with stuff in the guest room so grandma and grandpa can enjoy looking through the memory box when they come to visit.

Certain antiques and vintage collectibles lend themselves to specific rooms in your home. For instance, hang Grandma’s beaded purse from the 1940s on the handle of a guest room or powder room door. Make Grandpa’s old golf clubs a feature in the foyer or back door mud room by leaning them in a corner so they can be seen as friends enter the house. Place an old flour-sugar-coffee-tea canister set from auntie’s kitchen in the playroom as a catch-all for the kids’ school art projects like white-glue macaroni picture frames and clay ashtrays.

For kids’ drawings, don’t frame them professionally. Just go to the craft store and get some small inexpensive wooden table easels and position them around the house. If you want to display your kids’ artwork on a wall for a longer period of time, consider a poster frame with plexiglass for a lightweight display option. Family heirlooms are great options for home décor and they will make decorating your home a memorable experience.

Dr. Lori Verderame is the award-winning Ph.D. antiques appraiser and artifacts expert on History channel’s #1 rated show, The Curse of Oak Island, about the world’s oldest treasure hunt. She gives appraisal value information at her website www.DrLoriV.com, on www.Youtube. com/DrLoriV or at (888) 431-1010.