Salt and Pepper move in

In my last post I mentioned that my sweet Grampa-in-law recently downsized from his house of 40 odd years to a retirement condo. And we ended up with his salt and pepper shaker collection. All 400+ sets. That's alot of salt and pepper shakers (7 large boxes full in fact). I am not a collector of anything really, except maybe dust bunnies under my bed (sorry mom), dvd's and fabric/craft supplies, but since they get used and replaced on a regular basis I don't think it counts as a collection. Mr Darkside on the other hand can definetly be labeled as a collector. He has glass display cases housing hundreds of action figures. He has boxes and boxes of lego sets waiting for a cabinet in which to properly display them. He has collectable knives (safely locked away from the kidlets). And yet somehow it became my job to sort thru and set up the s&p collection.

Actually when we aquired these boxes I shoved them away in our basement guest room fully intending for them to sit there for a few months. And then I realised we were expecting company and I had to clear the room out. So I started to dreaded job of sorting. And you know what? I started to enjoy it! It was kind of like opening presents at Christmas! Like discovering crazy new things in every paper wrapped package.

Here's a look at some of the salt and pepper madness. Their new home in our guest room;

Some of my favs: pink elephants

Creepy '70s cats with googly eyes

An assortment of colorful fish

Angry lettuces...

A whole shelf full of veggies

Some funny ones that made me giggle

an assortment of little people

and the wild west shelf

And with all these shakers you may be wondering- did I take any for daily use in my kitchen? Why, yes, yes I did. I chose this lovely simple green set that matches my kitchen wall color perfectly. I love this green!

I jam packed that big cabinet full of the most unique and interesting shakers in the collection. I still have 3 more boxes of clear glass, coloured glass, and wooden shakers that didn't fit. Going through those is a whole other post!

** Sorry for the terribly lighted pictures taken on my basement air hockey table. I didn't feel like making multiple trips up the stairs carrying breakables**