Some collections just happen because you like a product and they offer a prize or something a little extra with it. Kids love McDonald’s and the Happy Meal toy is the bonus. (To be fair, many adults also enjoy McDonald’s even though they know it’s not the healthiest food, and I loved when they had Disney tie-ins, like the Christmas 101 Dalmatians [affiliate link] in the late 1990s.)  Cereals often have their own collectibles. In Russia, Dodo Pizza, which can also be found in Mississippi and Tennessee of all places, offers a hospitality packet with each pizza ordered. Inside the packet are a couple of napkins, one or two toothpicks, and a sticker. It’s great for people who collect toothpicks… and stickers from Dodo Pizza.

A Specific Collection

Chances are my Dodo Pizza sticker collection will never be worth anything. They are just a cool oddity that displays Russian language (sometimes) and captures the spirit of the Dodo Pizza company much of the time. Not all of the stickers are labeled with the Dodo Pizza name, and that’s okay. The collection does tell me how many times over the last three years I ordered pizza in from the company, which makes it interesting in and of itself.

A Larger Collection

Of course, this could be the beginning of a sticker collection. By combining the different Dodo Pizza stickers with similar stickers from other places, I could grow a rather large group of varied and fun stickers. On the other hand, I could also break these stickers up and make them parts of other collections – maybe a unicorn collection, a Japanese cat collection, or a Dodo collection. Whichever way I look at it, these stickers can be combined with other items to form a new kind of collection.

Care for Stickers

Of course, I can’t use these stickers for their intended purpose, which is to stick on something, like a computer or a notebook, if I’m going to keep them for a collection. I could, however, stick them all in a book meant for the purpose of holding them. However, once they’ve lost their stickerness, they will most likely lose perceived value. I also need to keep them from getting wet, and though some came to me bent or folded, they need to be kept as flat as possible while avoiding fading, which means protecting them from UV light, especially the ones that contain the color red.

Collecting and Creativity

Collecting is a great way to do two diametrically opposed things: it can keep you focused while opening you up to new combinations of ideas. A lot of times, people have problems with focusing on the subject they want to learn more about, collecting specific items can give you that focus. However, most collectors choose two, three, or four different kinds of things to collect. These allow for an exploration of where the collections interconnect, which can spark new ideas. Even within something as simple as the stickers from Dodo Pizza collection, there are several different categories that could be combined to help spark new ideas – a space unicorn and rapping dodo may spark ideas that you otherwise wouldn’t have.

For more on collecting, check other blog posts with the “collectors corner” tag. For more on creativity, join our Patreon, subscribe to this blog, and check out my book “Disneyland Is Creativity.”