I started an eraser collection in junior high because they gave us certificates worth cash at the student-run store. They had so many different kinds of erasers: dinosaurs, robots, spaceships… I’ll have to dig them out of my stuff when I get back to Oregon to truly see what was available. I’d get a certificate, go to the store and get an eraser or two. We got to choose, so there was no reason to get doubles. I stopped doing much with my eraser collection when we moved away from California. Oregon’s middle school didn’t have a store where I could get free items – at least, I don’t remember it having one, maybe I wasn’t good enough to get free certificates.

My in-laws gave me a gift certificate to the local bookstore, and the bookstore requires that you spend all of the money on the gift card at once. We got down to the last couple of dollars, and there really wasn’t anything left to buy. Then I spotted these pencils (see photo) on the shelf. They were Disney, and they were in the price range of what we needed to spend without going to far over budget (almost like a Price Is Right game). I picked them up because I collect Disney stuff; it wasn’t until later I realized they could fit in another collection.

Ostensibly, this is really the beginning of a pencil and eraser collection. However, I really don’t expect the pencils to survive our next trip. There’s a good chance, they’ll get broken in transit. Now, I’m excited to see if I can find my old Uno box with the erasers in it though I’ll be surprised if it survived so many moves. If it hasn’t, I can still add these to my Disney items.

Collectors’ Corner

Collections give us an opportunity to find the intersection between things, especially when we have more than one thing we collect. Combining different items is what creativity is all about. If you’d like to read more about creativity, join us on Patreon or get one of my books: “Disneyland Is Creativity,” “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity,” and “Penguinate! Positive Creativity.” Collectors’ Corner will be a part of our new Studio/Store, I expect to post something from it on Thursdays if you’re interested in reading about different items I’ve collected or found that someone else has collected.