With our 22 years of women’s trips from The Women’s Travel Club and Group, all of us have loads of souvenirs brought back with love and memories from our travels. Some have true artistic value, some are true horrors. Here are some clean out/ hang up tips for your detritus.

Make piles of small cheap items, arrange by color/shape or materials. If you cannot see an evolving collection, toss.

Move flat items onto a sheet of paper and see if they might look better hanging on the wall. These can be exotic jewelry, tiles, bits of fabric, shards, coasters, brochures, and maps.

Carpets: many of us found that along with the friendly cup of mint tea, we ended up owning a carpet or scarves. I stained or faded, use simple crayons to recolor, cut up to cover a pillow or other.

Wooden carvings: again these can be displayed as museums do; sometimes a plate holder can suspend a carving to make it look more important. Sometimes these need to be in the woodpile.

Before you shop on your next trip, check online to see what these items cost on eBay, Pier One or Marshall’s! But scratch your shopping itch if you must and enjoy it.

The best shopping ops coming up on The Women’s Travel Group trips are:

Argentina July where the Peso is at all-time lows.

Sicily Dec 5-12 2014  with Christmas Markets  ( much is delectable food)

India Oct 25-Nov 4

Morocco for Thanksgiving