How to perfectly style a shelf? Have you heard of the term shelfie before? It’s a pretty picture of an organised shelf! According to Urban Dictionary, a shelfie is a common term to describe a portrait of a beautiful and organised bookshelf and kitchen shelf or pantry. Not to be confused with a selfie (self-portrait).
In this blog post, I’m gonna show you how to style a stunning wall shelf or bookshelf; that would be an Instagram worthy photo! We will learn how to mix and match texture and ornaments. Let’s get started to perfectly style a shelf that is a shelfie!
Obviously, my Harriet & Co’s shelf is full of my own brass and gold products. I chose the wall shelves because it looks clean and simple, and also it doesn’t take much of floor space as my design studio is quite small.
The elements play an important role in styling a shelf. Play around with textures and colours to add a personality to your shelf.
I added faux plants for the greenery, copper decor, a glass dome, marble coasters, a marble clock, and earthy tones like a rattan basket with pine cones in it. I also like a little bit of colour so I put faux pink roses, pink jade stone, and blue hydrangeas.
Start with the Books
If you are a book reader or just like to collect them, try to gather all of your books of the same size and organised them in specific colours. Some people don’t like to see the title of the book because sometimes it might look messy or none of your books has the same match colours – what you can do is simply turn them around to show just the pages.
Play around with the placement of the books and consider mix and match with horizontal lining and vertical lining.
Mix and Match with Textures Ornaments
As I mentioned before, play around with different textures! It could be an earthy element or choose your favourite texture to display. Some like it brass/gold, some like natural colour like woods or a simple white marble.
I’m going to show you one of the shelves that I adore by Shay Cochrane below. Not only that she uses geometric gold and brass ornaments (which I love! it’s so Harriet!), she also uses an earthy element like that odd-looking artistic wood, granite book-end, greenery plants, some memorabilia of her family’s portrait, a hint of black colour from the frames, and inside-out book covers.
She has everything set up perfectly with all the elements of a perfect shelf!
Colour Coordinated your Bookshelf
If you’re not a fan of brass and gold colours, try to keep it monotone and stay in the neutral coloured items. You can even make a colour coordinate shelf by using the same colour palette throughout.
Here is an example of Ambers Interiors and she’s done it! The colour palettes she uses are black, white, earthy warm tones like brown, cream, and green.
Yes, always put greenery! Whether it is faux plants or real, it’s up to your lifestyle and how you can keep the plants alive. I like the way she put the blue cover book inside-out so she still managed to have the same coloured palettes throughout her shelf.
Add your own Personality
How to add a personality to your shelf? Easy! Just pick any unique object or your own interest to the shelf. An item that you like whether you found it on your traveling, flea market, Etsy, or your own handmade creation.
Consider various shapes and colours that represent you, this could be a vase, a vintage camera, handmade pottery, or your childhood toys/dolls.
Another example of a colour coordinate shelf by Glitter Guide, not only that she keep the blue colour around the shelf, she added her own unique objects like wooden shoes, sheep figurines, and artistic vases.
There you go! I hope these tips and examples will help you to rearrange your shelf! Have fun decorating and perfectly style your shelf!
For more decor & styling, stay tuned to see various styling posts!
