We love decorating our homes with beautiful, ethical homewares, and we’re especially fond of hand woven baskets, many of which are made by our artisans in the communities bordering Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda.
Baskets are great for adding texture and interesting design to a room, and it is not necessarily just an African decor trend either – woven bowls and baskets look stunning in contemporary homes across the globe.
Whether you’re going all-out with a gallery wall with woven discs dotted around, using one bold and colourful statement piece, or simply using them as neutral-toned storage solutions, woven baskets and bowls really do work in every home.
Perhaps we’re slightly biassed, but we’re a huge fan of woven baskets and bowls, as they can be styled in so many different ways.
Here are a few of our favourite tips for styling woven baskets and bowls in your home.
1. When it comes to home decor, are you a maximalist or minimalist?
I think this is the first important point to determine when decorating your home – try not to be influenced by whatever is on trend at the moment, and think about what you truly love.
Do you find joy in a clear, orderly space with minimal clutter, or do you love having all your favourite art, books and trinkets on show? Perhaps you’re somewhere in the middle.
Woven bowls and baskets can work so well for minimalists – they’re a great way to organise or hide away any unsightly essential items, and the natural tones often work really well in a minimalist home.
If you’re a maximalist, you can really have some fun playing with different colours, textures and sizes, to create a really interesting display of woven baskets and bowls.
2. Choose a colour scheme for your home
Let’s get into colour, as this leads on nicely from the minimalist/maximalist debate, and again, I think it needs to be about what truly brings you joy.
Whether it’s a calm and serene home with muted tones throughout, pops of colour here and there, or an eclectic, vibrant rainbow, there’s an ethically made woven bowl or basket that will fit seamlessly into your home.
For example, our Set of 3 Colourful Woven Wall Discs are perfect for colour-lovers, while the White Woven Basket would be ideal for a more muted home.
Choosing a colour scheme can also help you narrow down choices when buying accessories for your home, and will create a more cohesive and intentional look.
3. Mix up your homeware textures
When styling ethical woven bowls in your home, no matter what colour scheme you’re going for, mixing textures adds interest, and can be really fun too.
You could use bowls and baskets with different weaving techniques, or add other materials alongside, such as wood and metal, to create a more layered and varied aesthetic in your home.
4. Use different sized woven bowls and baskets
Mixing sizes is another top styling tip – when styling woven baskets and bowls in your home, it often doesn’t look quite right for everything to be exactly the same size and shape.
Using a variety of different sized woven bowls or baskets is effortlessly stylish, much more playful, and adds depth to your home decor too.
5. Woven bowls to be used, or purely decorative?
There’s seemingly no end to the number of uses for woven bowls and baskets – seriously, we have a whole blog full of creative uses for baskets in your home.
Do you like everything in your house to be practical and have purpose, or are some items in your home simply there to be looked at? Maybe you like a bit of both, and some may argue that beauty is more than enough of a purpose.
Ethical woven bowls are wonderful for displaying lovely items in your home, and can be such a lovely addition to a sideboard or coffee table. They add a little interest, and can make the space look more intentional, and less cluttered.
Styling a woven bowl also gives focus and importance to items that are held within the beautiful bowl, whether they’re practical items or things that are simply nice to look at.
Meanwhile, woven baskets are great for organising items that you may not want on display – we all have some unsightly clutter or wires that we’d rather not look at, right?
6. How to arrange your woven bowls on a wall
If you’ve decided to display your beautiful ethical woven bowls on your wall, it’s best to arrange them on the floor first, to figure out a composition that you like.
It’s much easier to move things around when they’re on the floor, and you can easily figure out what works and what doesn’t, before hammering any nails into your wall.
Do you want your woven bowls to overlap, or would you prefer some space between them? Will they work as part of a gallery wall with other prints and artwork? Or perhaps you are going for a more minimal look, and want one stunning woven bowl to stand alone on your wall, as an interesting focal point.
Our Zimbabwean Binga Baskets look incredible mounted on a wall, and create a high-end feel to a home.
Hopefully, these decor tips will help you create a home that works perfectly for you and makes you feel good, with the help of a few beautiful ethical woven bowls and baskets.
If you’d like to create a basket wall but you’re in need of a little styling help, Karakorum founder Natasha offers a bespoke styling service. Get in touch to find out more.
