Collecting momentos of our travels in Germany and other European countries has become a fun endeavor for my whole family. We want to keep items that would remind us of the special places we visited and the experiences we shared. It was a challenge in the beginning to figure out what souvenirs to collect as there were so many options. With our “P.I.C” (practical, inexpensive, compact) guideline in mind, we decided on the following souvenir collections…

My husband has become a beer and wine enthusiast over the course of 2 years of living in Germany. He scouts for labels that he has read about or recommendations from locals, and bring home a few bottles to enjoy and share with our friends. He ended up collecting the beer bottle caps and wine corks – which I plan to use for fun crafting projects (I have a wine cork trivet and bottle cap tray project in progress).

My daughter collects postcards and stamps which she keeps in a scrapbook. She also has patches of most places we visited displayed on her girl scout vest – some were personal purchases and others were travel patches she earned as a scout.

I collect refrigerator magnets. I pick out designs that uniquely represent each place I buy it from. They are tiny works of art and I never get tired of looking  at them. I would eventually like to make a giant metal wall display that will house my magnets in our future forever home.

I know of friends who have souvenir collections of Starbucks mugs, Hard Rock Cafe pins, wine labels (stripped off the bottles), beer steins, different monetary currencies and business cards of establishments they have visited. What’s yours? Happy collecting!