A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. 

The phrase is used by Shakespeare in Hamlet.  A trifle is a small thing.  Unconsidered here means unnoticed or ignored.  A snapper-up is some one who snaps things up or collects them.  I have considered the trifles I write about!

Bits and pieces are miscellaneous items, perhaps on a shopping list or in a container.  Bits and bobs is an alternative phrase.

The weakest link is where a chain snaps or the least reliable member of a team.  It is the title of a TV quiz show

I feel like a spare part is often said when other people seem to be managing well without the speaker, who would like to be involved.

Neither use nor ornament is a description of an unattractive item or an insult!  (An ornament is an item used for decorative purposes.)

Like a coiled spring is jumpy.

Put a spoke in someone’s wheel means much the same as a spanner in the works.  Most bicycle wheels have spokes.

I was hooked.  My interest was caught (like a fish on a hook).

Hook, line and sinker means completely.  It describes a fishing rod’s constituent parts.  Another blogger has adapted this for his blog’s title.  Muck, line and thinker.

Straight as a die.  I am aware of two meanings of the word die when it is a noun.  The first is the singular of dice.  The second is a tool.  Whatever the derivation, the expression means completely honest.

 Any old means whatever comes to hand.  By contrast not any old means something chosen especially for the purpose.

Any old iron used to be the call of a rag-and-bone man.  Steptoe in the comedy TV show (Steptoe and Son) was a rag-and-bone man.  When I was a child the local man used a horse and cart to collect unwanted goods to resell.  Most mothers stayed at home to look after their children and had a ragbag in which they saved worn-out clothes, for instance.  (There were no recycling facilities as we have now.  Better items were often saved for jumble sales to raise money for schools, uniformed organisations and the like.)  In Lancashire they also shouted, “Donkey stone.”  The stone doorsteps of houses were a source of pride to their owners and were kept clean by rubbing them with a donkey stone.

Knick-knack, Paddywhack,
Give a dog a bone

is part of a counting song.

A Knick-knack or nick-nack is an ornament or other small item.

Counting and fishing brings me to a related Bible story.  This one is worth reading in full.  John 21:1-14

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

My blogs are entered in the UK Blog Awards.  Sue’s considered trifles is in the education category and Sue’s Trifles is in both the education and lifestyle categories.  (They are competing with each other in education!)  One vote is allowed in each category.  There are voting buttons on my blogs and more details in a post (link below).

http://suestrifles.wordpress.com/2013/12/16/voting-has-opened-for-the-uk-blog-awards/