Carla Giojammies first heard about Harry Potter at age 9, and has never looked back. Now she has a collection that includes more than 600 rare books and pieces of memorabilia.
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00:00Because I see it every day, it's still magical to me, but when people get to come in and
00:09they get to like take it all in, it's always special.
00:12It's been a process, like I love to change things around and I change, you know, I reorganize
00:20my collection a lot.
00:21I love sharing the process and especially, you know, I decorate, I have an entryway that
00:25is Harry Potter, I have a coffee bar that is Harry Potter.
00:27In 2023, when we first moved in, before we moved from Maryland to Texas, I had a sale
00:32and I sold a bunch of pieces of my collection that I was not taking with me.
00:36And people always are like, how are you not attached to the things?
00:39I'm like, I am very attached to the feeling of joy that my collection gives me, but it's
00:44not necessarily attachment to certain like pieces.
00:47It's also a way for me to like add pieces to my collection.
00:51If I sell 10 pieces, maybe it will give me the finance to buy one that is a little bit
00:56more expensive than the other 10 combined.
00:59But creating it, I always try to make it a therapeutic process for me.
01:04You know, people think like, oh, you're rearranging again, rearranging is such a, it's such a
01:09hassle and it can be.
01:11Sometimes I will start one process, oh, I'm just going to move this shelf here and 30
01:16minutes go by and my whole collection is down.
01:18Everyone is different.
01:19Some people put their collections in one space and it can be years and they haven't moved
01:24those pieces.
01:25I love rearranging.
01:26It feels so therapeutic when you get to like find your pieces again and okay, I used to
01:32have these books displayed here, but now I want to display this piece here and it just
01:36makes it new without having to buy anything new.
01:39My place is such a personal place to me.
01:40It's like sacred.
01:41I love having my friends and having people come over and I just find it to be a place
01:47of like community.
01:48The amount of people you get to meet and actually share your stories with and how did you fall
01:51in love with Harry Potter?
01:53And then you make these friends that they were strangers five seconds ago and now we
01:57get to see each other many times a year.