Lisa Bauso, Photographer, Documents The Items She Found In Her Daughter's Pockets (PHOTOS)

LOOK: What A Mom Found In Her 7-Year-Old's Pockets

It's part art project, part anthropological experiment -- and it has all the random, unedited charm of a second grader's colorful imagination.

More than a decade ago, Lisa Bauso and her husband, Joe, spent a year saving the items their daughter brought home in her pockets -- carefully preserving each day's haul in a dated Ziploc bag in the laundry room -- before Bauso ultimately photographed it all, batch by batch.

The resulting book, "Bella's Pockets," is a whimsical catalogue of "found" items curated by a 7-year-old for whom everything, even a lunch money reminder, was a souvenir. Many of the photos are accompanied by explanatory captions provided by Bella herself when she was 12 (she is now 18).

"As a toddler [Bella] always had something clenched in her fist," Bauso told HuffPost over email. "Later, her pockets were her mini museums. She was always crouching down to pick something up on the street, bringing it to her eyes to examine it, like a diamond broker searching for flaws and color, then shoving it in a pocket."

Naturally, along with the regular detritus of a second grader's daily life -- pennies, erasers, candy wrappers, a fortune teller -- there are treasures of a less predictable sort: a cocktail sword, figures from a nativity set, and a quarter pound of roofing nails (Bauso says that particular batch surprised her the most).

The book has 76 images of the items found in Bella's pockets -- and only two photos of Bella herself -- but somehow comes across like nothing more than a high-resolution portrait.

LOOK: What Lisa Bauso found in her daughter's pockets (with captions courtesy of Bella)

Before You Go

Vitamin C tablets, Crumpled up receipt, Watch battery, White bead, Flouride tablet

'Bella's Pockets' by Lisa Bauso

Popular in the Community

Close

HuffPost Shopping’s Best Finds

MORE IN LIFE