Woodland Style: Ideas and Projects for Bringing the Beauty of Nature Into Your Home

Photography by Sabine Vollmer von Falken

Home settings as diverse as a windswept farmhouse, a cabin by a lake, or an urban brownstone can all be made more beautiful with the addition of decorative pieces crafted from found bits of the woodland landscape. Magazines such as Architectural Digest and Country Living have featured organic elements in every kind of interior setting, and it's virtually impossible to pick up a Pottery Barn catalog or walk by the windows of Anthropologie or ABC Carpet without seeing an example of what the latter refers to as the organic landscape of modern homes.

Artist and author Marlene Hurley Marshall is inspired and excited by nature every day. Using easily found materials, responsibly collected from casual walks in the woods or fields, she creates stylish decorations that delight the senses with their natural colors, textures, and aromas. In Woodland Style, Marshall presents dozens of creative designs for natural home dcor from a variety of artists and crafters, along with step-by-step how-to for recreating many of her own projects. From the simple beauty of a dried-leaf collage to the eye-catching surprise of a bark-covered armoire, readers will find inspiration and instruction in these colorful pages.

In addition to highlighting lovely ways to bring nature indoors, Marshall also includes projects that use natural elements in outdoor decorating. Garden pots, window boxes, fences, and birdhouses all appear here in woodland- embellished versions that complement any home outdoor setting.

Homes as different as a windswept farmhouse, a lakeside cabin, or a city brownstone can all be made more beautiful with decorative pieces crafted from found bits of the woodland landscape. Using easily found materials, responsibly collected on walks in woods or fields, artist and author Marlene Hurley Marshall creates stylish decorations that delight the senses with their natural colors, textures, and aromas. In Woodland Style, Marshall presents dozens of creative designs for natural home decor, along with step-by-step instructions. From the simple beauty of a dried-leaf collage to the eye-catching surprise of a bark-covered armoire, you'll find inspiration and instruction in these colorful pages. Spectacular photography by Sabine Vollmer von Falken brings each idea to brilliant life.

Enjoy the Outdoors Inside

Bring the beauty and serenity of a walk in the woods into your home. Hand-gathered collections of acorns and moss, twigs and bark, and leaves and wildflowers are the main elements in natural home decorations, lending texture, scent, and warmth to interior settings of every style.

Marlene Hurley Marshall's Woodland Style is a beautiful tour through the possibilities for living with nature. From the wonderful creations of a talented array of woodland artists and designers to Marshall's personal interpretations of woodland chic, here are dozens of lovely ways to enhance any home with treasures from the woods.

Use one perfect pinecone and a length of fabric to make a simple curtain tie or gather enough velvety moss to transform a small garden table — the ideas and instructions are here for you to explore. There are also tips and techniques for collecting, cleaning, and preserving woodland materials and a delicious chapter on foraging and cooking with morels, fiddleheads, ramps, and other wild plants.

The woodland elements you love outside now have a lovely home inside.

There’s much experience behind author Marlene Hurley Marshall's book, Making Bits & Pieces Mosaics, for she has been creating her own mosaic masterpieces for over a decade. Marlene’s work has been exhibited and sold in galleries and museums shops alike in Boston, San Francisco and the Berkshire region of Massachusetts, where she resides.

Preface

Introduction

1 Foraging for Materials

2 Twigs, Vines, and Roots

3 Pinecones, Acorns, and Seedpods

4 Moss, Greens, and Wildflowers

5 Trees, Logs, and Bark

6 Wild Edibles

7 Holiday and Seasonal Decorations

8 Stone and Faux Bois

Resources and Credits

Index