I completely understand needing to purchase items for shelf styling. Needing to buy a large vase or something to add height, etc. Personally though, I don’t love shelves that are completely filled with things that are only pretty. I definitely have things that don’t mean anything to me (looking at you Target knot) on my bookshelves, but most of the things on them mean something to me.
The books are the most obvious. These aren’t beautiful hardbacks. These are well loved and read copies. Some paperback, some not. But, these are not decorative. And I’m okay with that.
The raffia box I got back when I was in college to fill with my abundance of early 2000s costume jewelry. It has been with me everywhere I’ve lived since I was a student. It now holds odds and ends, but I look at it and I can picture the days when it was filled with oversized earrings and chunky necklaces, getting ready as a group activity with my girlfriends.
I bought the pink box specifically to hold all my sewing notions after my grandma taught me to quilt a few years ago.
The silver jewelry box was a gift from one of my cousins. She gave it to me when I moved into my first apartment sans roommates.
The wooden bowl that holds all my sunglasses I purchased when I was in the Dominican Republic with my mom. A trip we took just the two of us.
The glass hurricane is filled with matchbooks of restaurants and bars I’ve been to. I’m no longer great at remembering to grab them, but I still snag them when I think of it.
And the ceramics. One of the pieces was made by the most talented person in my pottery class. She deemed it not good enough to keep. I felt otherwise. All the other pieces I made. And I see all of their flaws. But, there are also things I like about them. The white speckled pitcher was the first time I made something and it looked exactly how I was envisioning. The jars are a success story in lids. I really struggle with lids. The large beige bowl I know wasn’t thrown very well, but the glaze came out better than I could have hoped for, and I’ve been unable to replicate it since. In general, I love that I created them out of joy. I make pottery not because I’m a great ceramicist, but because I love it. And I like that when I needed objects to balance out the shelf styling, I had an abundance to pull from.
It’s nice to have a space that is filled with reminders of my life as I come and go from my apartment. At the end of the day, this is my home and I want it to be more than pretty.