DIY: Shelf Styling & Grosgrain Trimmed Roman Shade

When I get bored, I suddenly notice things that I don't like about my house and embark on a whirlwind effort to fix them.  This weekend, I decided that I was bored with my built-in shelves and since I'd been meaning to replace the awful mini-blinds anyway, I did a little re-styling.  Here's the end result:

Excuse the photo quality - I don't know what I'm doing yet.

I started by raiding my bookshelves and taking the dust jackets off of a bunch of hardback books and then picking what frames and small things I wanted to keep out.  Then, I pulled up my interiors inspiration board on Pinterest and went to town stacking things and rearranging until I didn't hate it.  (Working in the records my husband insisted on keeping in the room was really hard.)

Then, I went to Lowe's and bought a plain white roman shade to replace the blinds.  I cut about 2 feet off the end below one of seams and re-jigged the cords so that the bottom panel doesn't gather when you raise and lower it.  I bought 4.5 yards of pewter grosgrain ribbon from JoAnn's and used fabric glue to attach it to the freshly-ironed shade, and then yelled expletives and cursed Messrs. Allen & Roth for designing weird hardware that I eventually succeeded at installing.

Check out that handiwork:

Then, while I was at it, I switched up the mantel a little bit too.  It's nothing award winning, but it will do for now.

Now that you see my stuff, please feel free to share any ideas for improvement on the mantel, or help me in my search for someone I can work with for some e-design.  Or teach me how to take good interior photos?