A tour of my home in bowls

I've been doing a bit more of a Marie Kondo declutter lately, and inspired by her second book Spark Joy, as I wrote about here, I've been concentrating on finding the things I have that spark joy, and making sure that they are on display in my home.

I've discovered that some of the things that definitely spark joy for me are bowls, I have them everywhere! I've made an effort to move them to places where they can be more easily seen, and fill them with pretty things that look nice on display and are also tactile - I can run my fingers through the contents whenever I pass by!

Many of my bowls have congregated in the bathroom, because I have a couple of sets of small open shelves and I don't like them to be cluttered up with ugly bottles of toiletries. I have owned this colourful, shiny, daisy bowl for ages since I bought it on a family holiday many years ago. It used to live by my bed and now it is on the bathroom windowsill. It doesn't have much in it, because the pattern is continued on the inside and I like to be able to see it.

This wooden bowl was bought for my by my parents from one of their holidays. It's filled with some stones that I picked up on a beach, somewhere on the south coast. I remember that they were pebbles that looked really pretty when they were wet on the beach but they lost their lustre somehow when they dried out...I still like them though! I had to move them away when I had toddlers around but I can keep them back out now.

My final bathroom bowl came from my Grandma's house and I'm pretty sure that she or my Grandad made it. It used to live on my bookshelves, again high out of toddler reach, although I used to get the marbles out for Harry to play with under close supervision. They are mainly pretty metallic marbles so they have a lovely sheen to them. There are also some clear glass pebbles that I've collected from various crafty endeavours. The orange stone in the middle is a worry stone that I remember my Mum buying for me when I was little. It's shaped to fit between your fingers, and turning it over and over is supposed to alleviate worry. It's new position next to the sink means that I can pick it up whenever I'm in the bathroom!

This pottery bowl also came from my Grandma's house. Until recently it was empty and hidden away on the bookshelf, but I found it when I was sorting out the shelves and moved it to the front where I can see it. I recently went through all my beads. I put the large plastic ones aside for Mia to thread, the plain ones are in my craft drawers, and I used this bowl to store all my prettiest beads where I can see them. There are some in there that I have in mind to use on my Sky Blanket and some that I will probably never use for crafting, I just like to keep them!

Finally I've had the little plastic bowl below for a long time too, I don't remember where it originally came from, but a bit of Googling shows it to be a London Beetleware pudding bowl, dating from around 1930. It's mottled blue and white and very pretty. I use it to display my sea glass collection which was mainly picked up on the beach in Barcelona. The bowl sits on the shelf next to my desk, and if I'm feeling uninspired I move it in front of me and pick out the pieces of glass and feel their smoothness while I'm thinking.

Do you use bowls as part of your decorating? What do you keep in them?