Found Objects: The Most Natural Decor of All

Do you like to pick up a rock from every mountain range you visit, a shell from every beach? Perhaps your kids bring home shells and dried bugs, which then sit somewhere awkwardly and take up storage space. Celebrate the found object by putting it in a space of honor, displaying a collection or creating a unique work of art from them. Here are 10 ways to make your found objects feel right at home.

Pick up sticks. Driftwood, branches and gnarled sticks make some of the best sculptures and add a natural element.


Something as simple as a bowl or basket of found sticks or driftwood can become a beautiful centerpiece.

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Atlanta architects Cara Cummins and Jose Tavel hung branches in lieu of a chandelier in their modern dining room.


One person's trash is another person's chandelier. These light fixtures are fashioned from abandoned fish traps found on a family's South Carolina farm property.

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Clean up the neighborhood while you're at it. Graphic designer Maya Drozdz and her partner collect glass bottles they find around their Cincinnati neighborhood, Over the Rhine. They display them in front of a window, where light filters through the colored glass.

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Found objects add up to something more together. Artist Jeri Wakefield crafts all kinds of whimsical pieces from found pieces, like this train on her children's tree house.

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New York artist Rick Ladd crafted this one-of-a-kind mirror from bottle caps, for a style dubbed "bottle cap baroque" by the interior designer. While you may not have Ladd's sculptural skills, it would be easy enough to get out that hot-glue gun and create a simple picture frame from your bottle cap collection.


Put it under glass. Bell jars, cloches and even a covered cake stand can protect woodsy finds with style.


Make it more permanent. Found objects embedded in a concrete wall, floor or path add one-of-a-kind detailing.


An old bottle of bourbon is embedded in this bar's stone wall.


Get the kids involved. In this eclectic Texas garden, the homeowner invited her grandkids and other children from the neighborhood to help decorate her wall's mortar with toys, shells, pottery shards and whatever else they fancied.

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Turn a display into a work of art. Placing simple shells in a rectangular box gives the collection a neat and orderly modern look.


Keep it composed. Long walks on the beach can yield plenty of lovely finds, including driftwood, sponges, shells and grasses, which became a pleasing arrangement on this bookshelf.

Tip: Note how important white space is in making this arrangement so lovely — editing and curating is key, so keep rearranging and standing back to look until you get it right.

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Frame individual pieces of your collection. Spiders, butterflies and other bugs add up to an interesting wall in the home of two artists and their family.

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Display cabinets and tables provide additional artful ways to show off a collection.


Reinvent it. These artistic homeowners welded wrenches together for a new use as a gate handle.

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