Collecting Together: Randy & Kelly on Love, Memory, and Holiday Nostalgia

For Randy and Kelly, collecting is not just a hobby. It is the thread that runs through their relationship, their home, their work, and their community. As a married couple who have spent decades immersed in vintage objects, flea markets, and forgotten treasures, their story is about far more than things. It is about memory, generosity, and the joy of holding onto what matters.

Kelly is the owner of a vintage toy shop and a lifelong collector. Her collections range from toys and German wooden figures to jewelry, head vases, and objects she simply could not leave behind. Randy is a collector and dealer with a deep love for vintage advertising, signage, and aerosol spray cans from the 1940s through the 1970s. Together, their home is filled with pieces that tell stories, each one tied to a moment, a person, or a place.

Their relationship began, fittingly, through collecting. One of their earliest moments involved Randy leaving a party, going home to retrieve a vintage Aunt Jemima toy, and returning just to give it to Kelly for her collection. From there, weekends were spent at swap meets, sometimes arguing over walkie talkies before cell phones existed, always hunting for the next great find.

Walking through Randy and Kelly’s home feels less like stepping into a museum and more like entering a scrapbook in three dimensions. Giant advertising figures once displayed in restaurants now live alongside smaller, more intimate objects. Each piece has a backstory. Some came from supermarkets, others from closed restaurants, estate sales, or long-forgotten garages.

For Randy, the appeal of vintage advertising is in the inventiveness and craftsmanship. These objects were not designed to be collectibles. They were made to be used, then discarded. That is exactly why they matter. “The real collectibles are the things nobody collected,” he shared. Objects that survived by accident often carry the most weight.

Kelly feels the same. She believes a home should be filled with things that spark memories and emotion, not just match a trend. Every object around them represents a story they remember, a place they visited, or a moment they shared.

Among Randy’s many collections, one stands out during the holiday season: vintage spray snow cans.

These aerosol cans, once used to frost windows and decorate homes for Christmas, are a perfect example of the kind of everyday object Randy loves most. They were meant to be temporary. Spray, enjoy, toss. Yet decades later, the cans themselves remain, their bold graphics and mid-century typography frozen in time.

Randy collects snow spray alongside insect sprays, paint cans, and other aerosol products, drawn to the graphic design as much as the object itself. One year, he even shared a different spray can each day leading up to Christmas, turning an overlooked product into a daily moment of nostalgia.

There is something especially fitting about holiday snow spray. It captures the fleeting magic of the season, the effort people once put into decorating their homes, and the creativity of a time before mass production took over. These cans remind us that holiday traditions were once handmade, imperfect, and deeply personal.

Beyond their own collections, Randy and Kelly care deeply about the people who pass through their world. Swap meets and flea markets are not just places to buy and sell. They are social spaces, built on relationships, trust, and shared knowledge.

Kelly’s shop has become a safe place for collectors of all ages. She has watched children grow up, return years later, and continue collecting. She has given items away when they meant more to someone else than the money ever could. Randy shares that same philosophy in the field, helping younger collectors learn, sharing knowledge, and passing along items when they belong with someone else.

For both of them, collecting is about generosity as much as ownership. It is about knowing when to keep something and when to let it go.

As the holidays approach, Randy and Kelly encourage a different way of thinking about gifts. Instead of buying something new and forgettable, they believe in finding objects with meaning. A vintage toy that sparks a childhood memory. A holiday decoration that reminds someone of their grandparents. A spray snow can that feels like Christmas in the 1950s.

The best gifts, they believe, are not perfect. They are personal.

In a world overflowing with mass-produced things, Randy and Kelly remind us that what we choose to keep, and what we choose to give, says everything about who we are. Their collections are not about value or rarity. They are about feeling, memory, and the quiet magic of holding onto a piece of the past, especially during the holidays.

This story was created by Making Waves Project as a holiday feature celebrating the objects, memories, and little moments that make this season feel meaningful. During the holidays, even the smallest traditions and collections can carry deep personal history, connecting us to people, places, and memories that shaped us.

By sharing stories like this, we hope to highlight the joy of holding onto what matters, the nostalgia that lives in everyday objects, and the ways the holidays invite us to slow down, reflect, and remember. These moments remind us that meaning is often found in what we choose to keep, share, and pass along.

If you or someone you know has a story, collection, or holiday memory that feels worth telling, we would love to hear from you. And if you are a brand interested in partnering with us to help tell more stories like this, reach out at hello@makingwavesproject.com.

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Photography by Robiee Ziegler
Produced by Katie Caro