A Corner of My {Craft} Room: Arranging Items on a Bookshelf

What is it about women not being able to use something for its intended purpose and call it quits? For instance, this is a picture of a black bookshelf not being used as a bookshelf but rather as a display case.  It cannot simply house my books. No. I find it difficult, very difficult to allow my things to just "sit" somewhere.  It must have function AND style. This bookshelf is a part of my craft room, something  else that ironically has lost its original purpose as being a place in which to craft.  It has morphed into a museum.  Really a storage room that caters to my Audrey Hepburn obsession.  In my defense, I will say that along with Audrey one can find in this room pretty much anything with which they might need to craft something. 

Anyway, back to my bookshelf.  I'm particularly proud of the items on these shelves because most everything has either been DIYed, recycled, or thrifted. Even the black mirror (originally gold framed. spray painted black) and photo board were found at thrift shops. The candle stick holders were purchased at an antique store and many of my books were found after scouring second hand stores (a treasure trove for classics). To spruce up my books and bring some uniformity to the overall look, I covered many of my books that had unattractive or damaged covers with packaging paper purchased at the Dollar Tree. I also used some scrapbooking paper for a few. My "L.U.V" book ends were a previous project of mine.

I had a lot of fun arranging and rearranging these items until I was quite satisfied with this little corner of my craft room. There are a myriad of ways to arrange items on a bookshelf.  Here are a few things I kept in mind while putting together this bookshelf.

• I arranged books horizontally as well as vertically.
• I stuck to a single color (white) for most of my accessories.  My craft room colors are black, white, and Tiffany blue.  I didn't want to stray too far away from that color scheme, but  I did allow a few of the book covers to add variety.
• I kept in mind that less is more.  I could have easily packed much more onto each shelf, but opted to display only some of my favorite book titles.