Over the years, Giojammies' love for the fantasy novels grew, and her Harry Potter collection expanded to include more than 600 rare books and pieces of memorabilia. In 2010, for her high school graduation, she visited The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando for the first time. Not long after, she remembers skipping class in college to see Deathly Hallows – Part 2.
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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.