PRESTON — A local woman has more heart than anyone, according to Guinness World Records, which just certified her collection of heart-shaped boxes as the largest.

Susan West has been collecting heart-shaped boxes for the past 40 years, and she now has 1,560 of them. Over the years, she has had to invest in more and more storage to hold all the boxes.

“It was getting too crazy in our living room,” West said. “I put IKEA bookcases across one wall, so they’re all in one place now.”

West decided to try to get her collection submitted to Guinness World Records back in February. She said it was a long process that required a lot of work to get it submitted.

“You have to send a spreadsheet with the description and number and place,” West said. “Then you have to make a video of them numerically in order.”

It took a few hours for West to get everything submitted for Guinness World Records.

“It took six people to get it submitted,” West said.

West said once everything is submitted, it can take about a month to get a response from Guinness World Records. West said she was excited when she finally heard back from them.

“It’s a lot of waiting,” West said. “I felt way happy. I felt like our hard work had paid off.”

West said Guinness World Records recently sent her an email saying that her heart-shaped box collection will be featured in the 2026 Guinness Book of World Records.

“I felt really lucky that mine was chosen to be in the book,” West said.

The previous record holder for “largest collection of heart-shaped items” was a woman in Switzerland. She had 750 items in her collection.

“Hers were any heart-shaped item,” West said. “Mine are heart-shaped boxes with lids.”

West said she didn’t have any particular reason for starting her collection 40 years ago. She just enjoyed the boxes and wanted to keep collecting them.

“One of them has my son’s baby teeth in it,” West said.

West is proud of her heart-shaped box collection and the recognition it has received. They are made of several different materials including plastic, glass, metal, seashells, felt and ceramic.

“There’s no duplicates,” West said. “They’re all different. It didn’t say that in the book.”