On Collecting the Unusual: From Vintage Buttons to Nail Art Sconces

I’ve always been a collector.

Not the pristine, keep-it-in-the-box kind—but the sort who picks up oddities, old things with stories in their seams, and objects that feel just a little bit haunted in the best way.

It started back in 1996 when I was still in high school. I worked part-time at a vintage clothing shop in Huntington, NY called Royal Tees. Picture racks of band shirts, 70s leather jackets, and piles of buttons so perfect I’d sneak a few into my coat pocket just to touch them later. That was the beginning of my love for stuff—but not just any stuff. The weird, the worn, the wonderful.

Over the years, that love turned into a soft practice of collecting and curating. I still seek out pieces that feel like they carry a frequency from another time. It could be a book, a brooch, a cracked ceramic plate, or wall art made entirely of nails.

Yes, nails.

🔗 Pol-o-Craft Nail Art Wall Sconces

This set of two sculptural sconces is a new favorite in the shop. I’ve never seen anything quite like them—brutalist mid-century meets craft school genius. They're hand-nailed, literally, and somehow manage to be elegant and raw at the same time. I imagine them hanging in a home with brutalist lamps and a velvet couch. Or a hallway that smells like old books.

🔗 The Lives of the Twelve Caesars

I love old books that carry the weight of having been read, maybe by someone who used to underline in red ink. This copy of The Twelve Caesars has a kind of dusty dignity to it. A perfect gift for your history nerd friend or your own bookshelf altar of esoteric knowledge.

🔗 Synthetic Gemstone Ring in Base Metal

Costume jewelry is another soft spot. This vintage synthetic gemstone ring is one of those pieces that blurs the line between kitsch and cosmic. I don’t mind that it’s base metal—some of the best magic lives in imitation. It reminds me of the kinds of rings I'd find in flea markets as a teen, imagining their previous lives.

🔗 John Singer Sargent by Kate F. Jennings

Sargent’s work is lush, complicated, and moody—just how I like it. This art book makes a great intro to his paintings or a quiet companion for late-night inspiration. It’s one of those pieces you keep by your bedside or coffee table and revisit when you want to feel romantic about the world again.

Collecting, for me, isn’t about value—it’s about vibration.

What does the object hold? What room did it live in? Who touched it, wore it, broke it, fixed it, passed it down?

It’s a way of honoring the unnoticed and the almost-forgotten.

Of making your home a small museum of the beautiful strange.

If you're drawn to the odd and soulful, check out the pieces currently in my Etsy shop—each one chosen with a kind of intuitive care that started in the button bins of a 90s vintage shop.