Who doesn’t want to have their home looking like a magazine? Well maybe me when I was in my really early 20’s. Yet, now that I am a mother to two little girls I find the compulsive urge to keep the house somewhat nice at every moment! But let’s be real that is extremely unrealistic. We moved into our home just little over a year ago and now that I am not pregnant and I am well out of those early postpartum days I am working towards making our house finally feel like a home! That being said I have encountered a few challenges and one would be trying to decorate our shelves with babies in mind.
Decorating Shelves with Babies that Love to Redecorate
We live in a 122 year old home with some beautiful built-ins but the age they are at creates some unique challenges.
One of the challenges I found was that the shelves themselves where too shallow. So a majority of books will not fit. Not only are the shelves too shallow but each section of shelves have different heights. And then… throw on top two sweet squish-able little girls that love to “help” decorate shelves.
In addition to that my husband and I run our household by the “anything left out goes” rule. So if one of them breaks something, even after correcting them over and over time again, we probably should have been expecting it. With saying that our girls are relatively good when it comes to not touching what they shouldn’t or understanding respect with certain objects around the house. At least our 2 year old is anyway our 6 month old is not at that stage yet so we shall see…
Creating a Play Decorative Play Shelf
So when it comes to accommodating to our little ones we decided making the areas they can reach not only pretty but productive. The two P’s as I always like to say.
Since our littlest is at the crawling stage I wanted to give her and opportunity to have a spot of her own. They do have their own playroom but I wanted to make a spot for their own toys so they can understand they contribute to the home in more than one way.
Now this is where I had to get really creative with the layout of our bottom shelves. As you see in the pictures there is a photo album. That photo album actually belongs to my 2 year old daughter! I filled it up with photos of family members an pets that she could have! But this is where I had to think out of the box.
I pretty much live at the thrift store, it actually is my weekly “mom break” outing! One day I just happened to be checking out the photo albums that is how I happened to stumbled on that one! It was an awkward size but really sturdy so I figured I would pick it up, since it was only .99. Thats when my daughter fell in love with it for some reason and boy am I glad! This gave me the idea to allow her to have the two upper selves to her self with out sacrificing my design plan with big bulky toys! ( We save those toys for the playroom).
Once I decided to dedicate those shelves to the girls I needed to find toys for my youngest. Thankfully I stumbled upon these cute little numbers to decorate the shelves with! Now kids toys are kids toys, but if you have to include them somewhere in your home I think investing in just a few really pretty toys is not a bad idea!
Here are some cute adorable toy options:
Wooden Toy Camera Kaleidoscope
Don’t forget to check your local thrift store or Facebook market place! I’ve seen and purchased many adorable toy at extremely cheap costs! Use this opportunity to channel you inner child! Have fun with it!
Now that we gave the little ones their shelves…
Once you figured out your kiddos shelves now comes the fun part!
Gather all the decorative pieces you have and empty the shelves completely before you start to decorate. Doing this allows you to clean any distractions when trying to curate your design!
I am very much a “make do with what you have” type person and that is how I was able to achieve my shelf design!
The Veggie Gardners Answer Book
Stuff Every Gardener Should Know Book
I found when decroating a shelving unit that has some awkward spaced shelves you need to really play with natural elements. What do I mean? By that I mean that you already know you style take the look you are going for so nail down your top 3, at least, textures when working with decorative shelves.
My top 3 elements are:
Gold/Brass
Dark Wood
Clear Glass
BONUS: Live Plants!
With these elements I was able to look at the over all shelf and determined where items should be placed in order to maintain balance through out!
The Old Art of Making Do…with Decorating Shelves
I am a stay-at-home-mom with no extra income so I like to work on a budget. So through out time I have not only collected things that I , and my husband, enjoy but knew I should be picky about. One of those things being picture frames.
When we first started decorating I made the foolish mistake by not stopping by our local thrift store more often and instead found my self at the dollar store. DO NOT do this if you want to have a more authentic feel. As much as I am creative I found that since becoming a mom I could not allow myself to make crafts like I use to. So because of that the thrift store has become not only my friend but my version of Walmart, dollar tree, and my fun store. You can find almost anything with some good digging!
With keeping in mind your top 3 elements you should be able to curate something beautiful very effortlessly! Each picture frame was a thrift find as well as the candle holders!
And while I love having photos of my family in our frames sometimes I like to change it up! So to the web I went and stumbled upon some beautiful prints from The Navage Patch!
Then I took some books and bibles we had and layered them to get this look pictured above!
Again with all this being said you really have to consider what your style is and roll with the punches! It takes times but sometimes the key is staying with the less is more rule. The less is more rule, in this applied area, can become almost fool-proof if you really don’t know what to look for yet.
It is all trial and error when you decorate shelves so give your self grace and patiences you will get there!
Beautiful Booms to add to your Shelves!
Lastly but most definitely not least is adding blooms! Right now with spring finally here it feels great to add some pops of color. Adding flowers also help keep from boredom. Something as simple as a bud can really add more to the variety within your shelves. So get your self into your car and bring some of nature inside!
I hope this bring some inspiration into your life as well as creativity with balancing kiddos and homemaking! Until next time! Keep an eye out for decorating shelves and more…
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