Weekend Bookshelf Shuffle

Happy Monday dear readers.  As promised I am reporting back to you about my daily walks.  I was true to my word and walked every day but one.  I missed walking on Thursday due to a late night at work and ended up getting sick the next day.  Coincidence?  Absolutely.  However, I was able to take two short walks even on the worst two days of my sickness.  In fact my walks were basically the only times I left my apartment this weekend, so it was probably good, if only to give my sick bed a chance to recover from the Claire sized dent.  

I've been trying to work on doing a little home improvement project of some kind every weekend.  Nothing too crazy required, but something that perks up this little apartment I call home.  This weekend, even in my fevered state, I was able to come up with a little project I could easily tackle: styling my bookshelf.  

This is something that would never have occurred to me to do two years ago, but after reading countless blogs and scouring Pinterest looking at beautiful homes, I noticed a trend in bookshelves that offer a little more visually than rows of books.  

I have a beautiful bookshelf that dominates one wall of my bedroom.  It is home to books from school, childhood, college and modern day and it needed a little attention.  It containted rows and rows of books with a rattly empty middle that I was always intending to 'do something with'...but never got around to.  

Here it is a glimpse at the before:

Yes that is a lightsaber on top of my bookshelf.  Be jealous.  

And here is the after: 

Basically I tried to break up most of the full shelves of books.  I tried mixing it up with little keepsakes, or vertically stacked books.  

I wanted to keep it visually interesting without falling into too much of a pattern.  As a newbie at shelf styling, I was pretty pleased with the results.  I think the shelf still feels a tad more full than they do in the model homes on Pinterest, but I think I keep it from looking too utilitarian with the new set up.  

 Any suggestions?  Any thoughts on bookshelf style or organization?  Anybody else spend this beautiful summer weekend sleeping in a dark room recovering from a fever?  

~Claire Out.