9 Bookshelf Accessories Every Globetrotter Needs
If your bookshelves could speak, what would they say about you? That you like reading, or you display books as stylish bookshelf accessories? Designers do that when home-staging. It’s impersonal. It’s just books with stylish binders, similar color hues, and perhaps an eloquent typeface with gold or silver lettering.
Personalized bookshelf accessories are mementos. Little items with a unique story behind them. Put them together and you have an eclectic collection of bookshelf accessories that’ll ignite interesting conversations among guests, be that at a dinner party, book club meeting, or hosting a game night.
Consider these 9 Ideas for Stylish and Personal Bookshelf Accessories
1. DIY Book Nook Kits
DIY book nook kits are bookshelf inserts in 3D puzzle format. Kits give you a better experience because when you’re assembling one that’s based on the scenery you visited, you’ll can be better recall the experience. It’s a terrific date night activity that gets couples bonding over memories they built together, and then they actually build it from a kit to place on the bookshelf. Some of the best book nook kits for international travelers are memorabilia of places visited. Examples of travel-themed book nook kits include 'Tokyo Alley book nook', 'Travel in Venice' by Rolife and the picturesque 'Colmar Town' kit to transform bookshelves on a budget.
2. Personal Photos in Complementary Frames
Photo frames are the top choice for personalizing any shelf in the home. For your bookshelf though, the style of the frame carries through. Designer, Carla Aston, explains that the favorite styles of photo frames for bookshelves as being those with a neutral color tone and textures. Materials that fit the bill include: “bone, horn, marble and wood”. That is unless, you’re going for a coastal vibe, in which case, frames with "rattan, wicker or shells" can continue the coastal vibe.
3. Souvenir Rocks
Rocks are another natural element and no matter where you travel to, you’ll find rocks that can be au-naturale memorabilia. The best types of rocks and pebbles for a bookshelf are ones with a flat bottom. You can use a marker or paint brush to add the date and location the rock is from and paint the top of it. The more you travel, the bigger your collection becomes. Display them all together in a bowl or on a plate and each one becomes a memory on a stone. Pick it up, turn it over, recall the memory of the trip.
4. Travel-Inspired Art
Did you know there’s no formal definition of art? It can be anything! If it looks good, makes you feel something (any emotion), and/or makes you think (meaning it’s cognitively engaging your brain), then that’s art. It could be as simple as a Kokeshi Doll with a polka dot design that brings to mind the art installation by Yayoi Kusama in New Yorks Botanical Gardens, or having several floating candles in a glass bowl of water that reminds you a festival abroad like Loi Krathong in Thailand or Toro Nagashi in Japan.
5. Postcards
Before everyone was connected to the internet, postcards were how people would check in with family and friends while traveling. Now, it’s a hobby (postcrossing) and the postcards aren’t all-that travel related. Some are pictures of animals, flowers, and cupcakes. Travel-related postcards are still sold, but usually at tourist hotspots, like kiosks at airports, and souvenir shops.
Rather than settle for generic postcards, you can make your own. The print size is 4” by 6” and if framing with a mat board (to stop the ink sticking to the glass of a frame), use a 7” x 5” frame and you’ll get a neat 1” border. The tricky part will be the handwritten note because unless you get the photo printed while traveling, you’ll lose the opportunity to write a note about the current experience.
To capture that in your words, while the experience is fresh in your mind, use a journal. Write what you would have written on a postcard in your journal, then when you’re home and have the card printed, copy word for word what you wrote in your journal. If you want to add to the authenticity of a collection, bring back a local stamp and attach that to the back of the postcard too. Keep the collection in a photo book, and you'll can flick through memories years from now.
6. A Fountain Pen Display Case
For some people, wherever they travel, their favorite writing pen goes too. It’s used for note-taking, and journaling, or now, postcrossing about your adventures. It’s also a travel tip among frequent international travelers because custom forms need to be completed.
While everyone else is waiting in line to borrow one of the few pens the cabin crew have, you can crack on because you remembered to bring a pen. That in itself could be an interesting conversation starter when guests visit. Perhaps talking about what the best fountain pen for travel is - the ink capacity, robustness to handle being dropped, or if the good pens get packed and a multi-pen or ballpoint goes in your carry-on or shirt pocket.
7. Pottery
When styling shelves in any room, items made with natural material like earthenware, (terracotta) stoneware, and ceramics help to ground the space. When your design can do that, it’s a calming aesthetic. Things like vases, fruit bowls, and ceramic display plates can be bookshelf decor pieces unique to the destination they came from - because the clay was once part of the ground. It’s been mined, refined, and crafted into a bespoke ornamental.
The styles and designs differ by region too. What you’ll find in the Bizen pottery village in Imbe, Japan, will be much different from pieces from Nove in Italy, and different again in Sante Fe, New Mexico. Any ornamental that was once a mound of clay has an entire story behind it.
8. A Small Globe (desktop size)
Globes are symbolic of exploration. About the journey of discovery through different cultures in various regions… the cuisines, the atmospheres, the experiences as a whole. When you have a collection of memorabilia from around the world on your bookshelves, the globe could be the focal point tying the theme together. Every personalized item among your books is from just one small part of the world.
9. A Wind Up Travel Clock
Analogue clocks with mechanical gears are a rarity so you’ll be hard pushed to find a brand new one. They’re small, compact timepieces that fold up to pack away and then can be quickly setup in your hotel room. The advantage to these aren’t the alarm because you’ll likely have one on your smartphone, smartwatch, or an alarm in your room. It’s the local time back home because by default, smart devices automatically update the time and date based on the nearest cell tower.