Office of Collecting & Design

Are you a collector?

Do you bring home little items that make your heart happy?

Do you have a treasure trove of tiny things that bring you joy?

I'm definitely a collector. I love to add to my collections when we travel and visit new places. Fridge magnets, Christmas ornaments, Starbucks mugs, tea towels, little artworks that speak to me... 

But my collections pale in comparison to the awe inspiring Office of Collecting & Design!

I recently had the chance to visit the Office of Collecting & Design when it made a tour stop in Denver. This mobile museum is housed in an old RV and is full drawers, shelves and containers - each one housing a tiny collection. Anything small you can think of, it's there! And the best part? It's all hands on! You know I love a good interactive exhibition!

The Office of Collecting & Design is the brainchild of multidisciplinary artist, Jessica Oreck. As a stop motion animator, Jessica amassed quite the collection of teeny, tiny items. Toys, buttons, game pieces, teeth, bones, vintage postcards, stamps, cigar boxes, doll house miniatures, holiday ornaments, doll parts, film slides... Pretty much any tiny item you can think of.

Knowing that the public would have an interest in her collection of miniature items, Jessica opened a museum in an abandoned strip mall in Las Vegas in 2020. As popularity grew, Jessica decided to take the museum on the road, and in 2025 the mobile museum we see today hit the road!

The Office of Collecting & Design is currently on its Fall 2026 tour through the South West. Denver sold out right away, but tickets are still available for the remaining locations including Santa Fe, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, and Houston. If you're in or near one of these cities, and collections and miniatures bring you joy, I definitely recommend booking a ticket ASAP. The museum is pretty small, so the number of people who can enter at any one time is pretty limited. I think there were maybe 8 people during my time slot.

Visitors are welcome to touch pretty much everything on display in the museum during the one hour self guided tour. The drawers are there to be opened to explore the treasures hidden inside. Sometimes you'll find drawers of tins that each contain their own even smaller collections. Collections in collections!

And in case you're wondering, like I was, each of the items is held down on the shelves with museum putty. Apparently it does a really good job of keeping pretty much everything in place as the RV travels across the country! This does mean that you maybe have to pulled a little harder than expected to pick  items up off shelves, so just be aware of this. Items inside drawers are not stuck down though. 

If you'd like to get a little more hands on, there are two special options available. The first is a scavenger hunt. I took part in this one. Visitors will be given a chart that features the outlines of sixteen items to find in the museum. When you find an item, you place it on the scavenger hunt chart. Now, I'm usually pretty good at scavenger hunts, but with so many things to look at, and limited time, I didn't manage to complete the challenge. I did find eleven of the sixteen items though.

The second option is the flat lay experience. Visitors taking part in this experience will collect items throughout the museum as they explore, and then create their own flat lay to be photographed. I had really hoped to take part in this experience, but tickets are limited and were already sold out when I booked mine. 

Whether you take part in the scavenger hunt, the flat lay experience, or just take the self guided tour, a visit to the Office of Collecting & Design is such a joyful experience. Exploring the tiny worlds with other like minded visitors really did bring me so much joy, and I could tell that the other visitors all felt the same way. Not a moment went by without someone gushing over an items they'd found, whether it was something that brought back childhood memories, or a new discovery.    

As you can probably imagine, I took a ton of photos during my visit, so let's take a moment to look at some more tiny collections. 

You guys are lucky I only had an hour to explore the exhibit, otherwise I'd have a ton more photos to share with you! Seriously, I could've spent all day exploring in there!

Ok, onto all the practical things you need to know about visiting Office of Collecting & Design...

The current Fall tour includes the following dates:

Santa Fe, NM September 30th - October 4th

Phoenix, AZ October 7th - 11th

Tucson, AZ October 14th - 18th

El Paso, TX October 21st - 25th

Houston, TX October 28th - November 1st

Locations for each tour stop can be found here. 

Tickets are $22 for the self guided tour, $35 for the scavenger hunt, and $75 for the flat lay experience. 

Both the self guided tour and scavenger hunt are one hour long, while the flat lay experience is two hours.

Office of Collecting & Design is not intended for children. Many items are fragile, and the space is rather limited.

Given the nature of the RV and small space, the museum is not wheelchair friendly.

Bags are not permitted inside the museum, however they can be stored safely in the staff only area while you explore.

The museum is not equipped with a restroom.

A small gift shop is available in the museum.

Love tiny collections and scavenger hunts, but can't make it to Office of Collecting & Design in person? You're in luck! There are clubs and postal swaps available for the community!

Office of Collecting & Design offers three clubs: 

Treasure Club, which includes a tiny treasure from the museum's collection each month.

Decoder Club, a digital scavenger hunt with monthly secret messages and prizes.

Postcard Club, which includes a monthly premium postcard.

Two community swaps are also available several times throughout the year including the Security Envelope Pattern Swap and the Wisdom Exchange.

You can learn more about the clubs and community swaps here.