Theme collecting is one of the best ways to organize a collection, and there are dozens of different possibilities. Suppose you want to collect items from a certain decade--the 1950s, for instance. Your collection can include various items made by different manufacturers, but everything should still be tied together by the decade.Form collecting, which means collecting a bunch of items that were used for the same purpose--water pitchers, for instance--is another option. Or how about character collecting? Choose any character out there such as a movie star or cartoon character, and collect everything you can find. The Flintstones are a fun example. These characters arrived on the scene in the 1960s, and because of the popularity of the cartoon, manufacturers produced many items like this jigsaw puzzle and garbage can. With a movie revival recently, manufacturers are producing action figures.
There are millions of objects out there, and you can't own them all, but Rinker advises that one of the best ways to get organized is to specialize. Pick a theme and stick to it.
![PHOTO](javascript:popup("http://img.hgtv.com/HGTV/2003/01/06/cti111_4a_TrashCan_e.jpg",350,450))
![PHOTO](javascript:popup("http://img.hgtv.com/HGTV/2003/01/06/cti111_4a_FlinstoneMemorabilia_e.jpg",350,450))