Logo
  • About
    • Our Authors
    • About Spoonflower
    • Design Challenges
    • Spoonflower Gives Back
    • Spoonflower Ambassadors
    • Business ResourcesWhether you’re an artist selling designs on Spoonflower—or you’re a handmade small business owner—this digital series delivers professional advice to help you promote yourself and stand out.
  • Projects & Tutorials
        • FOR MAKERS

        • DIY Projects
        • Sewing
        • No-Sew
        • Free Sewing Patterns
        • FOR ARTISTS

        • Design Tutorials
        • Spoonflower 101
        • Artist SpotlightBehind every design is an independent artist from around the world. In this series, we introduce you to Spoonflower’s talented artist community.
  • Get Inspired
    • Wallpaper
    • Home Decor
    • Handmade Apparel
    • Sustainability
  • Our Community
    • Meet The MakersInterviews and spotlights of makers who use Spoonflower for their handmade business
    • Ambassadors
    • Design Challenges
    • Small Business HandbookThe Small Business Handbook welcomes creative entrepreneurs to share how they’ve grown their business through meaningful mission statements, successful partnerships and so much more.
    • Spoonflower Seller HandbookDo you sell your designs in the Spoonflower Marketplace or are thinking about joining our growing community of independent artists? In this series, learn how you can promote your work and stand out in a marketplace that’s growing by the minute.
Search
Custom-printed fabric, wallpaper and home decor Shop Spoonflower →
Logo

Browse popular categories

  • Adaptive Fashion
  • Artist Spotlight
  • Business Resources
  • Community
  • Creative Community Spotlight

Most recently posted

An iPhone sits on a dark red surface. Green leaves from a plant are to the bottom right. A black pen and a tray of watercolors are to the left. On the iPhone screen is the first screen of an Instagram video by Spoonflower artist Danika Herrick. In black text at the top, in a white box, it says “#1 Cypress Cotton.” In black text at the bottom, also in a white box, it says “most versatile, it’s heavy weight works for draperies, Roman shades and upholstery- has a nubby canvas texture, colors print up bright and crisp. It’s the heaviest in the group...” the rest of the text isn’t fully shown as information about the video, including the poster’s name, who has liked the post, the name of the music in the video is over the black text in white text.
  • Spoonflower Seller Handbook
How to Create Artist Video Content to Grow Your Business

By Jessie Katz Greenberg on January 17, 2023

A woman is installing wallpaper with a pink-and-white gingham design on a beige wall.
  • Wallpaper
10 Wallpaper Installation Tips from a Professional 

By Kate Schanz on January 24, 2023

  • Community
Announcing February 2023 Design Challenge Themes

By Anna Fletcher on January 6, 2023

  • Inspiration
What is Your Big Craft Goal for 2023?

By Alexa Terry Wilde on January 13, 2023

  • About
    • Our Authors
    • About Spoonflower
    • Design Challenges
    • Spoonflower Gives Back
    • Spoonflower Ambassadors
    • Business ResourcesWhether you’re an artist selling designs on Spoonflower—or you’re a handmade small business owner—this digital series delivers professional advice to help you promote yourself and stand out.
  • Projects & Tutorials
        • FOR MAKERS

        • DIY Projects
        • Sewing
        • No-Sew
        • Free Sewing Patterns
        • FOR ARTISTS

        • Design Tutorials
        • Spoonflower 101
        • Artist SpotlightBehind every design is an independent artist from around the world. In this series, we introduce you to Spoonflower’s talented artist community.
  • Get Inspired
    • Wallpaper
    • Home Decor
    • Handmade Apparel
    • Sustainability
  • Our Community
    • Meet The MakersInterviews and spotlights of makers who use Spoonflower for their handmade business
    • Ambassadors
    • Design Challenges
    • Small Business HandbookThe Small Business Handbook welcomes creative entrepreneurs to share how they’ve grown their business through meaningful mission statements, successful partnerships and so much more.
    • Spoonflower Seller HandbookDo you sell your designs in the Spoonflower Marketplace or are thinking about joining our growing community of independent artists? In this series, learn how you can promote your work and stand out in a marketplace that’s growing by the minute.

Understanding The Trend: Cottagecore Wallpaper and Home Decor

  • Home Decor
  • Inspiration
  • Wallpaper
Edited: May 17, 2022
0 Comments
Share

During the pandemic, interest in baking was up and interest in travel was down. It’s no wonder that cottagecore, a trend idealizing the joy rural life can bring, popped up in 2020 as lockdowns started and staples like toilet paper were hard to find!

Curious to learn a bit more about the trend and how you can bring a little cottagecore into your own home? Read on below!

A stack of fabric designs relate to bees, from a large golden honeycomb design to mod and ant deco bees to a plea to save the bees.

(Featured designs)

Why Cottagecore? 

Cottagecore is a design trend that celebrates a simplified version of rural life, where there is always time to bake, ramble and create. When you start looking around online for definitions of the term, some common themes emerge.

According to the BBC, “at its heart, cottagecore hinges heavily on modern escapist fantasies, and posts are full of foraged mushrooms, long billowy dresses, gingham tablecloths, baskets of wildflowers, sourdough bread and mossy terrariums.” On The Good Trade, cottagecore features include “a lifestyle rooted in traditional skills — like baking bread, gardening, and sewing your own clothes.” While The Vou sees the trend as full of “rare countryside scenery, nostalgic peasant dresses, rustic handmade crafts, and artisanal creations in fashion and homeware.”

While to DIYers these things may seem neither “escapist” nor “rustic,” those lists do evoke scenes devoid of technology and hustle. And this absence of stress makes cottagecore perfect for dreaming about during a pandemic.

Bestselling Cottagecore Designs

A variety of mushrooms, some with red caps with white dots, some with brown caps of varying texture and shades, some yellow, are scattered among small wildflowers, some pink with yellow centers, some violets, some white and lacy and some small green branches with delicate yellow flowers appear on a cream background

Mushroom Garden Linen
by
mypetalpress

Baby goats jump around on a bright yellow background. There are all-white goats, white goats with gray spots, white goats with black spots and white goats with yellow spots.

Baby Goats
by
friztin

Brown foxes and rabbits and moths appear among yellow jewels and green-capped mushrooms and yellow flowers on leafy stems on a cream background

Spirit of the Forest, Camping in the Woods
by
ozdebayer

Central Cottagecore Themes

As noted above, cottagecore includes many things you might find in fairytales. What remains, however, is hinted in this quote from Vox, ”romanticism, not fairy tales, is the real influence on cottagecore.”

Romanticism has less to do with candlelit dinners than with placing yourself in a perfect moment or daydream. Having the time and ability to show up in serene places features heavily in the trend, as shown in Books and Quills’ post “25 Nature and Cottagecore Instagrammers to Dream Away With.”

Think of the delight found in floral geometry and the easygoing whimsy of nature. The feeling of going on vacation somewhere remote; the smell in the air when you get there. Romanticism shows up in moments that can occur anywhere with anyone, once you’re fully present in what’s happening in front of you.

 

Where to Go Cottagecore in Your Home

Woodland creatures, mushrooms and flowers show up again and again in some of our best selling cottagecore designs and this cottagecore collection of Spoonflower designs curated by Artist Community Manager Tara Reed.

As to where these motifs might work best, think of areas in your home where you go to relax, like reading nooks and sunrooms, or places like busy hallways or tiny bathrooms, where cottagecore design themes could help bring calm.

Cottagecore Home Decor

A tablecloth with a design featuring wild flowers and grasses in pinks, purples, blues and oranges covers a rectangular wooden table with white cookware and a sprig of eucalyptus in a clear glass vase

Wild Grasses
by
ninola-design

Two placemats with green frogs with yellow mouths and pink strawberries float on a green-and-white gingham background. A knife and fork lie on the left-hand side of the top placemat.

Green Gingham Cottagecore Frogs
by
noeldraws

A blue table runner lies length-wide on a wooden table. A white ceramic bowl of red apples lies on the table runner, which is featuring a design with white deer, some with antlers, standing on top of brown mountains of varying height. Both the deer and the mountains have tiny orange flowers all over them.

Enjoy the View Blue
by
bruxamagica

BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and the Cottagecore Movement

When looking at who shows up in many cottagecore trend images, it’s important to note that not everyone sees themselves within them.

However, influencers like Noemie Sérieux, founder of the Instagram account @cottagecoreblackfolks, are inserting themselves into the narrative, as she told Architectural Digest, “for those of us who don’t see people who look like us [in the typical cottagecore imagery], a little reimagining of these periods as inclusive rather than exclusive is just as important as preserving the complete history,” she says. “It allows us the opportunity and the creativity to see our ancestors as more than just a victim of their era.”

And several cottagecore trend pieces note that #cottagecore has provided a safe space for LGTBQ+ youth to share their own rural dreams on social media.

As a cottagecore fan named Reid told i-D magazine, “Unfortunately, my hometown, like many rural areas, is very anti-LGBTQ+. … It especially makes me feel like the things I loved in childhood, like having farm animals and picking blackberries in the fields and getting lost in the woods, are cis- and hetero-coded. So for me, cottagecore is an ideal where I can be visibly queer in rural spaces.”

 

Permission to Create Your Own Worlds

 

Whether you’re a surface designer or a DIYer, if you like the cottagecore aesthetic and don’t see yourself in what social media has to offer, remember that you can put yourself into the trend!

Given the prevalence of social media algorithms, it can be easy to forget that we can create our own worlds and that algorithms are rarely the whole story. However, the larger emotions that cottagecore evokes are for everyone to enjoy.

What about Goblincore?

And what if cottagecore seems too sweet for you? Enter “goblincore.” A trend fashion historian Rachel Weingarten explained to Nylon as “if Taylor Swift is the floral-crowned goddess of cottagecore, then Baby Yoda could be the poster child for the lovable aspects of goblincore.”

Goblincore takes the romanticism found in cottagecore, but celebrates a more well-rounded image of nature. As Tiktok user @froggiecrocs told The Guardian about the trend, it “romanticizes the ugly, lesser appreciated parts of the natural world.”

Given the pandemic, it’s easy to see how a neat rural cottage could feel too perfect for some. And how letting nature take over that same cottage for snails and snakes to inhabit might feel more in sync with many of our own energies as the northern hemisphere heads into another pandemic winter.

Wallpaper Project Ideas

  • Home Decor
  • Inspiration
  • Wallpaper
10 Wallpaper Projects That Will Inspire Your Next Big (or Small!) Room Makeover
By Betsy Greer on October 15, 2021

3 comments

  • DIY Projects
  • Home Decor
  • Inspiration
  • Wallpaper
Renter Dec: Wallpapered Closet
By Betsy Greer on October 15, 2021
  • Home Decor
  • Inspiration
  • Wallpaper
20 Inspiring Ways to Use Removable Wallpaper
By Betsy Greer on October 15, 2021

Have a drawing that might make for a good cottagecore design?

Check this tutorial on creating a seamless repeat!

About the Author

Betsy Greer portrait

Betsy Greer

Betsy is a writer and stitcher who joined the Brand Marketing team in July 2021. In her spare time, she talks to people about their choice to make things by hand and related lessons learned for her project Dear Textiles. She also aims to befriend all the dogs she meets and is forever looking for the perfect dress pattern with pockets.

Related Posts

Spoonflower Artist Judy Quintero stands at her long workspace while painting with watercolors. Books with inspiration of algae and flowers are open in the foreground. Behind her is shelving with decor, watercolor and art supplies and a printer scanner
  • Community
  • Inspiration
How New Artists Can Succeed on Spoonflower
By Judy Quintero on October 15, 2021
A woman is installing wallpaper with a pink-and-white gingham design on a beige wall.
  • Community
  • Inspiration
  • Wallpaper
10 Wallpaper Installation Tips from a Professional 
By Kate Schanz on October 15, 2021

2 comments

An iPhone sits on a dark red surface. Green leaves from a plant are to the bottom right. A black pen and a tray of watercolors are to the left. On the iPhone screen is the first screen of an Instagram video by Spoonflower artist Danika Herrick. In black text at the top, in a white box, it says “#1 Cypress Cotton.” In black text at the bottom, also in a white box, it says “most versatile, it’s heavy weight works for draperies, Roman shades and upholstery- has a nubby canvas texture, colors print up bright and crisp. It’s the heaviest in the group...” the rest of the text isn’t fully shown as information about the video, including the poster’s name, who has liked the post, the name of the music in the video is over the black text in white text.
  • Community
  • Spoonflower Seller Handbook
How to Create Artist Video Content to Grow Your Business
By Jessie Katz Greenberg on October 15, 2021
0 comments

Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Shop Spoonflower
  • Shop Fabric
  • Shop Wallpaper
  • Shop Living & Decor
  • Shop Dining
  • Shop Bedding
Design & Sell
  • Upload Your design
  • Design Tools
  • Designing FAQs
  • Selling & Comissions
  • Seller FAQs
More
  • Help Center
  • About Us
  • Press
  • Jobs
  • Privacy
Stay Updated
© 2022 Spoonflower Inc | Site by Reaction.

We use cookies to enable and enhance your site experience. By continuing to use this site, you agree to our use of cookies. Accept Learn More