Styling a bookcase

I have been looking for the 'perfect' white bookcase for a few months now.  To make a long story short, I could not find one that I was happy with.  I came across this Threshold bookshelf at Target and thought I would give it a shot.  I ended up getting it on sale (I think it was $92 and I used my Target card so I didn't pay shipping) and figured I would try and spruce it up on my own.

The quality of the bookshelf itself is actually really nice, it is well built and much bigger than I thought it was going to be.  Threshold for Target really has been kicking ass lately.  If you haven't checked their furniture/decor stuff out, you should. The best part is that the bookcase is truly white- not cream like lots of things turn out being.  Anyway,  I had bought some grey and white patterned transfer paper from TJ Maxx a while back (it was only $5.99 for two rolls) and I decided to put it to good use for this project. 

I applied the transfer paper to the back of the bookcase before I attached it to the bookcase itself.  It is a little bit tedious, but I realized that a few bubbles really weren't going to be noticeable once I had the shelves filled with things.

I will say this upfront: there is no specific method to getting a bookcase 'styled' correctly.  I have worked/reworked this one at least 5 times in the time that I've had it and I still don't feel like it's perfect. You want to take it one shelf at a time- don't worry about the big picture until you've gotten an idea of what you want on each shelf specifically. This process takes a lot of time/patience and a lot of STUFF!  

Here are some tips for filling your bookcase:

You want to find things that are going to mesh well together, so you may want to pick a color scheme.  Since the background of mine was grey and white, I wanted to mainly find things that were silver/grey or white with some touches of pink (a girly girl can never stray from pink).  I threw a couple of things in that were black but for the most part, I stayed within my scheme.  Also, you want to buy things that are different shapes and sizes.  Different sized picture frames, apothecary jars, vases, books, etc. If everything looks the same, you are going to have one boring bookshelf on your hands. You are going to want to stagger pieces, and this part just takes practice and patience.  You really will spend a couple of hours moving things around, stepping backwards and really looking at it, and then moving things around again.  I got a lot of the stuff on my bookshelf from TJ Maxx, Marshall's and Homegoods- but then other things are really just random (shoes, pictures I printed, fleur de lis salt shaker...) so really, you should just keep an eye out for anything that catches your eye wherever you may be!

My camera is officially broken, so now I have no choice but to only use my phone to take pictures, so I will say that these pictures of the bookshelf do not even come close to doing it justice.  But hopefully you all will get the gist of it and maybe get inspired or get ideas for your own bookcase that you may be working on.  

I hope you all enjoy this post and please let me know if you have any questions for me!