One of the hardest things to pull off when it comes to home decor is a beautiful display. And that feeling of frustration can often result in splurging on the latest must-have interiors trends. A much better alternative (for your health, pockets and home) is to look towards nature. You’d be surprised by how many lovely accents you can find for your home just by foraging in a forest.
Curating and creating displays require a bit of skill and creative flair so to make it easier, here are some top tips, so you can decorate with confidence and know what to look for on your nature walks or in your garden.
Find a colour palette
To understand what kind of colour scheme to go for, take all your current belongings (ornaments and other bits lying around in your house) and put them on the floor where you’ll be able to have a good look at what you own. Colour patterns will start to emerge, and it will give you a better idea of what to pick to beautify your living space.
Make sure you add interest to your shelves and displays by having things going in different directions. Otherwise, it can look too contrived.
Adding something horizontal like a small stack of books (carefully chosen for their colour spines of course!), a decorative box or even a stack of your favourite magazines will give you that horizontal line.
Now, add something vertical. This should be the easy part since most of what we would naturally put on a shelf is vertical. So vases work well, or plant pots, candles or artwork leaning against the back of the shelf, pieces of wood or cacti or dried flowers look great too, basically anything taller than it is wide.
Think Colour & Texture
Plants are a great addition to any shelf or console table as they bring things to life by adding colour and texture.
Don’t worry if you don’t have green fingers, cacti and succulents are bang on trend and are easy to keep alive. There is nothing worse than a half-dead plant to let your styling mojo down.
I don’t think you can ever have too many plants; current fashion is very plant-heavy. It gives your interiors that fresh and healthy appeal.
Using logs to style your home is something the Scandinavians are masters of, I have styled up a shelving unit in my home using logs, and I love the fact that it adds texture and a warm, cosy feel to the room. Larger logs make great side tables- just paint them and sand the top, and they will look fantastic.
Inject Variety
You can, of course, just pick a few ferns and flowers from outside and decorate your home, but if you are looking to take things to the next level, combination is your friend.
This step takes a bit of creativity and DIY, but ultimately can be very rewarding.
Shells on vases look fantastic and can be a great DIY project on your own or with children. Try filling some old jars with conkers and adding a few fairy lights in there to create a cosy space.
If you look around your home with fresh eyes, you can come up with some creative ideas and new ways to display your treasured things by combining them with nature’s freebies.
Always try to mix things up, combine textures and colours to bring more character to your space.
Sort and Curate
Keep only what you love or has great sentimental value to you. We all collect so many bits and pieces over time, but only a fraction of them should make it on your display. If not, you run the risk of having cluttered shelves that hide the most important pieces.
There are so many easy and freestyling ideas that have a significant impact, collecting twigs and spraying them a colour to complement your room and putting them in a vase is a great way to great an impactful display.
Grasses are very fashionable at the moment and can add a real boho feel to any room. I love growing alliums. When they’re done flowering, I dry them and use them as displays in the home.
I also like to collect old vases and jars to fill with cowslips and ferns that I find on my walks. Thyme from the garden also looks fantastic and smells great in the home.
Lastly, please be respectful of nature when foraging and taking things, don’t cause harm to the environment and don’t take things without permission. If you want to show a little extra love to Mother Nature, take home a few pieces of litter too. It will leave the world a tidier place.
Lynne’s work has been featured on Channel 4, George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces Floating Homes show and Gok Wan’s ‘Fill your house for free‘. One of Lynne’s biggest passions is her Warriors on Waste movement www.warriorsonwaste.co.uk which aims to teach and inspire the next generation of mini upcyclers. Lynne has recently during the lockdown been offering her design services via ‘Zoom’ with her new ‘Zoom your Room’ initiative, helping homeowners transform their homes remotely. More details of Lynne’s sustainable interior design ideas are on www.lynnelambourne.com and her instagram.
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