Decorate by Holly Becker

Most of you are probably familiar with Holly Becker's best-selling book Decorate. It was co-written with Joanna Copestick, published in 2011 by Jacqui Small and the photographs are by Debi Treloar.

It's a brilliant book that has - "1,000 inspirational design ideas for every room in your house." My blog is about flowers and floral styling so I am going to look at the parts of the book that covers flowers, vases, table settings and outdoor areas. 

The chapter on flowers has a sections on how to display flowers and another on how to choose containers.

Throughout the book are brilliant examples of different kinds of vases and other kinds of containers - sometimes displayed empty like here as a small collection of glass vases in blues and greens.  

This is an effective and stylish example of how a collection of identical containers works visually even without any flowers. 

I love these two images - the single pink rose in a round glass vase filled with silver sequins floating in the water and the blue scabious in inky blue glass bottles of different shapes and sizes. Brilliant! 

Throughout the book you'll find quotes on almost every page and there are some great ones in the flower section. 

Here is another example of containers of different shapes and sizes - all white and with no flowers  - but contrasted with a green jug overflowing with flowers. What a beautiful arrangement for a shelf or mantelpiece. 

This is a beautiful image of a simple arrangement of one type of flower in a clear glass vase - contrasting with a very light coloured dining area.

Holly says that flowers are the costume jewellery of the home and she's not kidding if you look at these brightly coloured vases and flowers. Great stuff!

There is a short chapter called Outdoor Living showing some examples of how to effectively use containers in outdoor areas. 

The last image is from Leslie Shewring's California studio showing not only lots of colourful roses and poppies in galvanized containers, but also lots of other containers that could be used for flower arranging, on the shelves behind.  

All the ribbons are from Jane Means collection of ribbons.

Thanks for visiting and I'll be back later in the week with another Floral Fusion.

Ingrid xx