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Three Great Reasons to Turn your Keepsakes into Home Décor

• It gives you permission to be sentimental
• You create something that’s unique
• It will be a great way to share your life with the people you love.

The older I get the more sentimental I become.  I lose loved ones and realize that it’s sweet to have something that reminds me of them.  I used to put keepsakes in boxes and store them with the promise to remove them from time to time and remember, but that never happened. And, more often than not, I lost track of the items altogether.  I needed a way to let my feelings out without having to rent out a storage unit to house them.

That’s when I decided that sentimental keepsakes need to be seen.  This does not give anyone license to put a bunch of figurines on a table and justify it as art, but we can get creative about how we display items that a truly special.

When displayed correctly, you create a unique piece of art that quickly becomes a statement piece.  I have discovered that the items I created out of sentimental keepsakes are always the ones that visitors ask about or comment on.

I could make a list of all the possible ways you can display keepsakes while maintaining a well-decorated home, but it’s best if you use your intuition when designing a keepsake display.  You know what works for your home, and what way you can best showcase each keepsake.

Tips on Turning Your Keepsakes Into Home Decor

Here’s a few possibilities to get you started:

• Put them inside Vases and Shadow Boxes.

I love to put things in big glass vases and shadowboxes.  This creates a display case that’s unusual and unexpected.  As an example, I put all the baseballs that my son and his friends brought home from their games in a large vase.  I love to be reminded of the many hours we spent at the ball fields and it looks great in my library.  Shadow boxes are great for jerseys, trophies, blessing dresses and suits, and beloved baby blankets.

• Expand Your Idea of Gallery Walls.

Trophies are sentimental to the winner, but they are difficult to display effectively. The best way I’ve found is to include them in a gallery wall.  Don’t stop at trophies.  Using gallery wall design principles you can display hockey sticks, baseball bats, and tennis rackets next to photos of you child playing the sport.

• Print photos onto a Roman shade for a unique keepsake.  (Courtesy of the Elliott Homes, AZ designers.)

• Embellish your throw pillows and decorative towels with your grandmothers cross-stitch, needlepoint, or doilies.
• Kids art is so fun! It’s the best way to give your home a kick of color.  If you want to turn these unique keepsakes into art, treat them like art by framing them.  Display them the same way you would fine art and they will look like masterpieces.

• Use padded ribbon photo boards to display photos, dance tickets, your wedding announcement and the photos, or any other memorable time.

The next time you’re tempted to put a keepsake in a box because you can’t bear to get rid of it, try turning it into something worthy of displaying in your home.  You may find that it brings life into your home as nothing else can.

Have you turned a keepsake into home décor?  We’d love to see what you’ve done.  Share in the comments below.