This slideshow requires JavaScript.

It started with a grab bag stuffed with costume jewelry at the Fremont Sunday Market in Seattle, and the vague idea that one of my crafty relatives could “do something with this stuff.” But once I got home and started sorting through the bags (yes, one bag led to another led to five, all at the same time) … anyway, as I contemplated each piece, I found myself enchanted. Each piece had a story, and even if I didn’t know that story, just the idea of a story set my imagination on fire. Mystery, hope, promise, big events, mundane moments. These are pieces of people’s lives, I thought, and now they’re pieces of mine.

Those pieces percolated in a corner of my brain for a few weeks. At around the same time, Timothy and I found ourselves fascinated by vintage photos we found at the flea market and at the estate sales we’d started to frequent. Then at another flea market we found some fabulous vintage stamps. And at the Goodwill, some remarkable drawings in vintage books. We kept accumulating these things, with no thought about what we might do with them. We simply loved them.

Then, basically out of the blue, it came to me: We’d use these finds to create special boxes to give as Christmas gifts. And we’d call them Dreamboxes!

And so we set to work, spending most of November 2015 with our dining room table taken over by an ever-growing assortment of weird stuff, Mod Podge, and boxes from Michaels with their interiors painted by Timothy. It was a painstaking process, involving lots of layering, waiting for drying, and more layering. But seeing these pieces come together was a joy.

The Dreamboxes were a big hit. But look: We still had leftover flea market trinkets. LOTS of leftovers. What to do with them? The solution: BUY MORE! At the Goodwill, I found a few containers of beads. At various estate sales, more costume jewelry. More beads. Some vintage watch parts. I couldn’t stop. Finally it occurred to me: Someone should “do something with this stuff.”

Then I thought: Well, maybe *I* could do something with this stuff …

And now we have a new obsession.