From left to right: Tracie Hervy white stoneware slim cylinder vase; hand carved, whitewashed wood chain by Atuto; Tracie Hervy white stoneware tray and tumbler; European recycled glass jar; paper mache bowl.

With the help of mother nature, interior stylist and Bloomist collaborator Hilary Robertson creates simple, beautiful, photo-ready vignettes and tableaux for the holidays.

Sometimes people think that they can’t have everyday things on a shelf — they think they have to have tchotchkes, which honestly can look a bit weird. It’s nice to have things that really do need to be stored on a shelf, but mixed with prettier or unexpected things like wood flowers which come in different heights and sizes and add a woodsy texture to a still life.

If you’re going to have books, don’t have just one book, but a nice hefty stack. Collections of things are great, and objects of varying height — when things are the same height, it looks terrible. You also can’t have things that are all wispy and soft. You need a mixture — of feminine and masculine, hard and soft, and then oversized things to ground it.

Hand carved, whitewashed wood chain by Atuto; paper mache bowl; Tunisian clay beads.

Sometimes I’ll use a chain in a shot because I want something a bit more solid, and the plus is it falls in lots of different ways. You also hang it or use it as an extra-large bookmark. Or I’ll want something that will kind of hang off the shelf — something that can kind of snake around things. Everything else in the typical shelfie is piles of books or a vase or a plant, so it’s kind of nice to have an amorphous shape that you can drape on the shelf.