Styling Spring Shelves with Cottage Vibes
Ideas and tips for adding cottage Spring style to built-in shelves, a bookcase, cabinet or hutch using quilts, ironstone, greenery and wicker.
Need Spring ideas and inspiration for decorating your mantle or bookshelves? The girls of Pinterest Challenge have what you're looking for! Keep reading to see how I've added cottage Spring vibes to our built-in shelves.
Welcome to our Pinterest February Challenge - Spring mantles or bookshelves!
We are here to inspire you to see your decor in new ways, and hopefully
motivate you to dust off your spaces and get to decorating! I've added all the
links to the team's ideas below.
What is Pinterest Challenge?
If you're new, first of all welcome! I'm Cindy, and I love finding ways to
beautify my home through crafts, DIY's, thrifting and more! If you're not
following along,
SIGN UP HERE
to get my ideas weekly.
If you hopped over here from
Michelle at Thistle Key Lane, welcome. I know you'll love her Spring mantel ideas.
Pinterest Challenge is a group of bloggers who get together once a month to
share how we put our own spin on an inspiration image that our lovely
hostess,
Cindy from County Road 407, finds.
The idea is to inspire you to see something that will motivate or trigger
you in your own decorating challenges.
Inspiration image
Our inspiration image this month is from my friend Sharon, who shares on
Instagram under her profile,
@houseonheatherfield. Sharon's Spring mantle has many elements that are perfect for Spring.
Elements I used to decorate my cottage white built ins for Spring
In looking at Sharon's mantel, I see several ideas that inspire me to use what
I have to style my shelves. Sharon's style is more boho chic and I lean more
cottage, but the same elements can be used to get a different look or style,
as you'll see in my images.
- flowers, greenery
- eggs, books, flower pots
- blues
- baskets and wicker elements
My tips for styling Spring shelves with cozy cottage vibes
This post may contain Amazon or other affiliate links. As an Amazon
affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases.
My full disclosure policy can be found here.
Before you start decorating your shelves, take a minute and consider the following:
Assess your spaceOur built-ins are large, with big 'cubbies', so I needed to find larger elements to fill the space.
Why?If I had filled my built-ins with a lot of little things, they would just get lost and look like clutter!
Quilts
If you caught my
Valentines decorated shelves, you'll have seen that I used stacks of folded quilts on these bookshelves
to visually make a big impact. I liked the look so much that I decided to
carry the idea into Spring with whites and blues.
Quilts are quintessentially cottage, and for Spring, florals and soft, dreamy
colors are my favorite. Are all my quilts vintage? Nope. Only two. By mixing
my vintage pieces with newer ones
(like my
blue and white floral Laura Ashley quilt set
that is still under $100 for the King size set!) , it creates a cohesive look.
Quilts help to fill in the dead space of a large bookshelf or set of
built-ins. You can get creative with how you fold them so their best side
shows out.
But not all of these are quilts...keep reading for additional tips and
tricks!
Secret tip:Yep, I'm dishing out secrets today! I didn't own enough quilts to adequately fill the cubbies, so I used pillows. If you take another look at the two images above, the top 'quilt' in each picture is actually a pillow! I just folded it strategically to disguise that fact and fool the eye!
Baskets and wicker
Sharon's inspiration image includes a beautiful wicker basket filled with
florals on her mantel. She also hung a round wicker element on a little wood
window.
You'll see lots of repeated wicker and wood elements in my shelf display, my
favorite is the white wood plate rack that I scored at the thrift store. White
painted pieces add so much cottage charm. I filled a handled wicker vase that
I found on clearance at HomeGoods years ago with blackberry stems. See how the
dark blues mimic the blues in my transferware plate that's leaning against the
wall! Soo pretty!
Another thrifted piece is a little shelf unit that I am tempted to paint
white. However, I like the contrast of the wood on the white bookshelves. I
added pieces of my vintage white ironstone collection, as well as some little
nests filled with painted and speckled blue eggs.
I made these grapevine nests last year using a great tutorial I found on
Cindy's site! She inspired me to get my hands dirty with spray adhesive, and
I was skeptical, but the DIY nests turned out so cute! You can
see her tutorial here.
I also added a faux olive topiary that I made to fill in the empty space to
the left of the brown shelf. It's tall and perfectly fits this space, and
helps to add the greenery element from the inspiration. I don't think I ever
posted that tutorial, so if you're interested, let me know in the comments!
My shelves include cottage style blue and white floral dishes, some vintage
books and faux eggs, all in the blues and greens palette.
Hot tip: Did you know?You can buy inexpensive craft eggs and create your own decorative Easter eggs for Spring with just craft paint. Paint them any color to match your decor. The speckles make them look just like the more expensive eggs you'll spot in boutiques, and I always do one more thing to get the high end look. Find my speckled eggs tutorial here.
I have several antique blue Ball jars and here I propped a couple up on the
rungs of the plate rack for something different. I also filled one jar with
smaller speckled eggs, which adds lots of cottagecore vibes.
Decorate in front of a cabinet
Sharon used terracotta pots and fresh greenery on the hearth, and I decided to
utilize the real estate in front of my built-ins and expand my vignette. I
added a sweet little stool (
shop similar) to hold some plants.
Aside: Have you grown pothos ivy before? It's soooo easy to grow, to
propogate, and the perfect plant for anyone who tends to neglect their plant
babies! I need to write a post on it!
I added two pretty blue pillows to a thrifted basket...
Hot tip: the texture of wicker contrasts beautifully with softer textiles like quilts, the smoothness of wood and reflected items like glass, adding so much interest that keeps your eyes hopping!
Ready to see how the entire set of Spring built-ins looks with all these
cottage elements? What do you think? Did I meet the challenge?
Are you feeling all the cottage vibes?
I hope I've inspired you to transform your shelves for Spring 🌱🌷 Don't worry
if my style doesn't resonate with you, there's more inspo ahead! In fact,
Lora of Lora Bloomquist Create and Ponder is next and I know you'll enjoy her Spring bedroom shelf ideas! You'll find
the whole lineup of ideas below!
Pin to Save
Cindy, Your cabinet is filled with so much vintage goodness! Love the quilts and dishes.
ReplyDeleteWhat a charming grouping! I have big heart eyes for your vintage plate rack. The touch of blue feels so fresh for spring!
ReplyDeleteYour cabinet looks so beautiful, Cindy! Love all of the wicker touches you have added.
ReplyDeleteUsing a pillow disguised as a quilt - brilliant!
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautifully styled cabinet! I love all of the textures. And the stack of quilts is gorgeous. (And a brilliant hack!) Great job!
ReplyDelete