Make vacation last by decorating with souvenirs

By Janne Terfruechte Aug 18, 2011, 4:06 GMT

Cologne - There is a way to savour those wonderful vacation days once they are over by using little objects like shells and stones found while visiting another place to decorate the home.

Many people consider their holiday the best time of the year and would really like it to last forever. But when quitting one's job and emigrating aren't realistic alternatives, souvenirs can bring a bit of the holiday mood into the home and can be used to create unusual or unique displays.

Mareike Hermann of a Cologne academy for do-it-yourself projects said people always connect good memories with their time off. Katharina Semling, an expert in interior decorating in Germany, said items brought back are like little 'pillars' to support a memory. Just looking at then can be a reminder of free time spent away and can conjure up a great feeling like 'an instant summer mood.'

What counts as decoration and how it is arranged is entirely a matter of taste. Things found on the beach, for example, are often the best things to use in decorations, Hermann said, citing shells attached to a magnet with a glue gun and used on a memo board or refrigerator. The DIY academy in Cologne suggests making a mobile of small shells, starfish and a tree branch fished out of the water or found in the sand.

Sand collected on a beach in one country can have a different colour from sand taken from a beach somewhere else. A way to show this to put the sand into small jars or vases and label them. These can then be placed on a spice shelf in the kitchen or on a bookshelf.

Not every holiday, however, is spent at the beach. Thus consider collecting stones in the mountains or forests or along any coastline. 'These can be used to form the words of a phrase or quote that sums up the holiday,' said Hermann.

'Actually, you can decorate with anything discovered during a holiday that you also find interesting or beautiful,' said Semling. This can even be furniture pieces such as a small stool or a piece of porcelain that is typical of the country visited, Hermann said. Arranging them on an old chest of drawers is one way to display them.

'Create a sort of altar in the home's entrance and hang photographs taken during the holiday on the wall above it,' said Hermann. Shells, stones or other tokens brought back from a vacation are placed on the top of the chest of drawers and trigger memories of the holiday every time you walk past. A pin board can be used to display postcards with various scenes from a city or other place visited. Pictures are also very popular.

They are the best way to remember a vacation, said Martin Erler of a German hobby association. 'The memories are more real when you look at the photographs not only on the computer,' he said. They can be arranged with objects brought back from the vacation and hung on the wall or placed in a frame with shells around its edges.

Hermann recommends presenting them as a collage on a simple board bought at a home improvement centre together with ticket stubs from museums visited and city maps.

Items brought back from a holiday destination also can be used to decorate the garden or balcony, said Semling. Small stones from a faraway place can be arranged in an interesting way to decorate flower pots. Or they can be placed one on top of the other starting with the largest on the bottom, said Erler.

Semling noted that a vacation is actually for all the senses, therefore a decoration brought back from another place doesn't have to be simply visual. When looking for things to bring back, think about the different senses. Incense sticks from India for the living room or soap for the bathroom are examples of fragrant things. Also, tea in attractive packaging can be a reminder of a holiday when it is prominently placed on a kitchen self.

Another tip from home decorating specialists is that when looking for things to bring back from a holiday, remember it is better to leave some things where they are.

'When it comes to organic decorations, you should be careful not to take something that damages the natural habitat,' said Semling. Shells should be brought back only in reasonable numbers. 'There are beaches in Italy on which there are no longer shells because they have all been gathered up by visitors.'

The specialist say people should also think of ordinary items as things that can help keep a memory alive.