How to Style a Bookshelf With Southern Swank - Southern State of Mind Blog by Heather

Thanks to everyone for your sweet comments on “My Heart” post. It’s really easy for me to blabber on about arts and crafts and decor, but when it comes to getting really personal around here it can be scary. I really appreciate the reminder to give myself grace in this phase of my life. So I will wipe the oatmeal off my shirt, pull out my paint brush when I can, and keep plugging along!

So now that we got all that out of the way (and it felt so great to get you up to speed!), let’s get back to the really important things in life. You know. Like styling a bookshelf.

Does anyone else think styling a bookshelf is really hard? So many things to get right.

Too crowded. Too few things. Scale is off. Color palette is whacked.

Since clearing the Christmas decor, I have been tweaking the built ins and I think I have finally landed on a look I like. (*edited- it already looks different since I took these pictures. Can’t. Stop. Zhushing.) I did this over the span of a couple days – 10 minutes here, 5 minutes there. Of course, because I am a decor hoarder…no… make that house tweaker… um…no…let’s go with “resourceful”… yes…resourceful… I used things I had around the house.

First step, I completely emptied them to give a fresh slate.

Then I decided on a theme for my shelfies.

Yes, a theme. If you know me, this probably isn’t surprising. I like themes, mmmm-kay?

I know this may sound weird, but it really helps me to keep things feeling unified when putting my shelf styling together. For these shelves, I wanted “Southern Swank.”

Think Scarlett O’Hara meets Southern Charm. (and yes I lurve that show #smh) Without a theme, each of these shelves could have ended up with a different look and vibe. And that’s OK if that’s the look you want. But I wanted my shelves to feel cohesive. So with a look in mind that I wanted, I started my treasure hunt in the house.

I have been collecting milk glass for years so that was an obvious first choice. I only used a few pieces though and tried to group them together based on scale and similarity.

Then I pulled in some Blue Willow pieces. Because everything is better with some blue and white.

And a dog. Everything is definitely better with a dog.

Then I found three matching glass candle holders. One holds the Big Sweet’s golf tee souvenirs and some matchbooks from special places.

The other holds wine corks.

And on the other side, I piled my heart shaped rock collection in one.

Just another little way to unify the shelves.

I also piled some books to add some height. I used my Restoration Hardware inspired books (these things have been on rotation ever since I did them!) and then just some fun Southern + Swank coffee table books.

Last but not least, I wanted some bling. So I fished these fun gold trellis glasses out of the cabinet and grabbed this tray I had painted gold a few months back to corral them.