For a number of years we have been collecting hat pins (or lapel pins) as souvenirs of the places we’ve been. Now we would like to find a nice way to display them. We have about 200. Any ideas?
You can pin them on one of your old suit jackets. That way you can display them walking around or, at home, putting the jacket on a display mannequin. These things were very popular with members of the armed forces stationed in Europe.
Hi TX, A friend of mine has a 2'x3' wooden frame cork board on which he has displayed his collection of old fishing lures. He's got maybe 75 lures on the board and many of them are several inches long. You might also consider a large wall map of the U.S. In that instance, however, you will need a large available wall space for, let's say, a 3'x5' wall map. Then there is the potential problem of too many pins crowded into some spots. For example, you could have pins for the Statue of Liberty, the UN Building, Yankee Stadium, and the Empire State Building and have to put them all in New York City on the map.. Good luck with whatever you decide.
All of these are great ideas. Admittedly our first thoughts were to find something to mount the pins on that would hang on the wall. We had thought of shadow boxes, but it seemed like it would take a lot of them to hold all the pins; although we thought we could just display our favorites, not all of them. The US map is a good idea, too, but as you said, having too many pins in one area may be a problem for us. We do have a large wall available, though, so we’ll have to look into that. We’re glad you mentioned that your friend’s display board is 2’X3’ and holds 75 lures. We weren’t sure how much space we would need for 200 pins, and this gives us a starting point for planning. Now the suit coat and mannequin is a very unique idea. Wonder if we could find an old dressmaker’s form and use it. Another idea to consider! We have also seen coffee tables that are display cases—the top is glass which can be raised up so that you can put items on a shelf underneath. The problem there is that the shelf isn't made to have pins stuck into it so we would have to line it with cork or something that could accommodate the pins. That is an expensive way to go, and we don’t really need another coffee table, but we are keeping it in mind. Thanks for the suggestions. We appreciate your help.
Hmmmmm.......hatpins, eh? How about a hat? (Wasn't that simple?) I'm working on my third baseball hat when it comes to hatpins.
QUOTE(B. Kidd @ Jan 7 2013, 05:35 PM) [snapback]32370[/snapback] Hmmmmm.......hatpins, eh? How about a hat? (Wasn't that simple?) I'm working on my third baseball hat when it comes to hatpins. Well, yes, I thought of that, but I really want to display them on a wall in the house. I know there are display cases specifically made for this purpose, but I was just wondering if anyone had a unique homemade way to display them.
When we go to Disney, my wife gets a pin from each place we visit and puts them in a shadowbox frame surrounding a picture from the trip. With 200 pins, that's alot of pictures, even if you got 20 pins around an 8x10, that's 20 pics. IF you have alot of wallspace (a bar area in the basement, or a stairway with lots of open wallspace) you could have quite the nice momento walk.
QUOTE(Texasrvers @ Jan 7 2013, 06:50 PM) [snapback]32371[/snapback] Well, yes, I thought of that, but I really want to display them on a wall in the house. I know there are display cases specifically made for this purpose, but I was just wondering if anyone had a unique homemade way to display them. how about hanging the hat on the wall?
QUOTE(edcornflake @ Jan 9 2013, 12:35 PM) [snapback]32380[/snapback] When we go to Disney, my wife gets a pin from each place we visit and puts them in a shadowbox frame surrounding a picture from the trip. With 200 pins, that's alot of pictures, even if you got 20 pins around an 8x10, that's 20 pics. IF you have alot of wallspace (a bar area in the basement, or a stairway with lots of open wallspace) you could have quite the nice momento walk. Edcornflake, actually a stairway was the exact place I had in mind. I really like the idea of adding a picture or two, but not one for each pin; I don't think I even have one for each pin. And maybe the pins could be organized by trip (I have been thinking about by state/city). That would still be a lot of shadow boxes, but you have given me a great idea to work with. Thanks. rkw99, thanks for your suggestion, also. It would be very logical to use hats since these are hat pins, but I think some kind of framed display is more the direction I want to go.
TX If you decide to use shadow boxes for your pins maybe an outline of each state could be used instead of pictures for the background.
Great idea. Maybe I could have the the state shape or outline as the background and still use a picture or two. This is sounding better all the time.
Yes, 200 pictures would be a lot. I was thinking more of a picture in the middle of the frame with 10-20 pins around it. You could, if you're any good with photoshop or another editor, put the pictures in the shape of the state (so, pictures from a trip to SC in the shape of SC with all the SC hat pins around it). I like that idea so much, i may do something similar myself!
I'm not sure I am proficient enough with Photoshop to do what you suggested, but I have scissors! I also need to play around with the idea and see if it would be better to organize the pins by state or by trip. Either way this sounds like I can work something out.
I couldn't figure out how to put a picture from Flickr on here, but this link should take you to a mock up of what I had in mind... Flickr the dots represent the pins. You could very easily do this with scissors, actually, just print a sillouhette of the state (or region, or province) and put it over a picture, or picture collage (could be printed as a square collage) and then trace and cut.
