6.15 Volume - The Bowls

Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Each day we will write a blog post on a pre-determined theme chosen by a random noun generator. The theme for the fifteenth day of the month is "Volume."

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When my husband's grandmother (do you say grandmother-in-law?) went into assisted living, we were handed down her curio cabinet and a beautiful cedar trunk. I was also given free rein to go through all of the serving bowls she had in her kitchen cabinets. Despite my extensive collection of scarves and scissors (update on the scissors front: my husband recently broke the pair of scissors that live in my upstairs desk and I haven't replaced it, but I think we all know it's only a matter of time until I replace it), I am not really a collector of things, but it is well known that I am a lady who likes bowls. 

My sister got this bowl as a wedding gift and said it was ugly. I laughed, told her it was lovely, and she gave it to me. I use it to store potatoes on the kitchen counter.

Here's the thing. We don't have a lot of tchotchkes in our house. With the exception of the handful of items in the curio cabinet (I can't bring myself to say "our" curio cabinet - it will forever be Grandma's), we don't like to have things around that are purely decorative. But bowls, you see, can be beautiful AND useful. And that's why I'm always looking at vases and bowls. 

A series I nabbed from my grandmother-in-law's collection.

Bowls aren't just useful for salads and the storing root vegetables. I have a bowl on my dresser that holds my bracelets and a bowl that holds my ponytail holders. I have a bowl that I use on my desk to hold the assorted pens, Post-It notes, and tubes of lip balm that inevitably collect. I love a good bowl.

Bracelet storage! A friend made this for me when he was taking a pottery class when we were in grad school. I've had this blog long enough that I even have a post about it.

I like how the bowls I've collected remind me of people and things I've done. I was describing a piece of pottery that I had lusted after, but decided not to buy to my mother-in-law and she went down into the basement and rooted around and came back up with the blue bowl below which was pretty much exactly what I wanted. She just handed it to me and said it wasn't doing anyone any good in her basement. Ha. I love it and when I use it, it reminds me of her.

My husband is one of five children and as each one of his siblings got married, a friend of his parents would give them a polka dot bowl that was part of a set of five. We were the last ones to get married, so we ended up with the smallest bowl, which I lovingly refer to as the Minnie Mouse bowl and it has been used for many a bowl of popcorn. 

Bestest Friend sent me a bowl as a present once and I use it for additional bracelet storage. (Hmmm...I think I need to acknowledge that maybe I do have a hoarding problem. So many bracelets, too!)

Do you have an affinity for bowls? What is your equivalent borderline hoarding item?