their trio of shelves (and my struggle with vignettes)

i had planned on finishing up the posts on luca and gia's bedroom in october, but alas, i once again fell prey to the monster of underestimation.  meaning i always have great ideas and fall short on the follow through.  but y'all are gracious with me, right?  so in the next few days, i will be tying up the loose ends in that department.

to review so far:
an introduction of their space can be found here.
and take a look at their magnetic chalkboard doors here.
and get an idea of how we play in the room here.
the fairy lamp close-up is here.
and the tutorial for gia's love letters banner is here.
and there is the city art tutorial here.
how to make scrappity ceiling fan pulls here.

and finally, our ohdeedoh room tour can be found here.



tonight i will highlight the shelves where we display all sorts of bric-a-brac.  (i am very pleased to have used that word in a sentence.)  with room design, i am better at the bigger picture.  my struggle is with small scale vignettes and styling.  i often work and rework a shelf or tabletop over time until it finally feels right.  these shelves finally feel right.

an additional challenge was incorporating all sorts of collected items and cherished whats-its that kiddos tend to gather.  and knowing that these things would be used and handled, i needed to plan for something easily adaptable.

here is a snapshot of what this trio of shelves looked like last month.



wooden elephants given to luca from grandma lee. gia's self-portrait framed.  luca's sewn star garland.




mason jars full of collected shells and rocks.  garage sale framed art. dolls gifted to gia from grandma cece and tia becky. gia's jewelry box.





one of jesse's old spiderman comic books.  garage sale snail bookends spray painted turquoise.  vintage books from my great-grandpa.




felt flowers made by jesse for his princessa.  vintage railroad light.  more vintage books from my great-grandfather. gia's first birthday snowglobe.




puppet gifted from tia becky's european travels.  rabbit gifted while pregnant with luca from good friends.  luca's first birthday german traveling bear.




luca's coin bank (urban outfitters). dragon finger puppet also from tia becky.  shells from our vacation summer '09.  luca's self-portrait framed.




things are shifted, added, taken down, used and shifted again.  but the overall set-up works well with that.  the large scale items anchor the little collections.  the shelves will always look cluttered, so i have kept the other wall decor simple. 

what about you?  do you like creating vignettes?  does it come naturally?