Dressing the bedroom

I have a lot of infatuations. Polka dots, birds, boxes, embroidery, baskets, leather, vintage stuff, furniture... the list could go on and on. But one infatuation that's stayed with me for quite some time is this color. I don't know what to call it. It's blue, but with some gray and green in it, and I've loved it since before it became a fad.

After slip covering my headboard I decided the bed needed some color. The whole room, in fact, was really very plain with lots of brown and cream and white. Some throw pillows were in order.

So I went back to Joann and bought another couple of yards of that nice flax-colored cotton fabric. I'd also scored a brand new 84" embroidered curtain panel at my local Goodwill for $5, which gave me TONS of lovely blue fabric with some cream embroidery down one side. About a year ago I'd found another brand new curtain panel there, made of the same fabric but in a different style, which ended up in our guest room (shown below). Weird, huh?

Anyway, over the past couple of days I've sewn up some pillows.

This one I used a basic applique technique to put our monogram in flax on the blue background, with some crocheted trim from a scarf I'd already started to cut up.

A bird silhouette (of course) using that lovely blue and, again, a basic applique technique.

I had to make a pillow form for this one because I wanted a rectangle shaped pillow. I love that embroidery so, so much!

Not sure what to call this technique- "sloppy applique" maybe? (Click the image for a closer look.) It was pretty simple. I drew the letters onto a rectangle of white linen with a disappearing ink pen, then pinned the whole piece to the flax background. I stitched around each letter with a regular straight machine stitch, then cut a scant 1/4" away from the stitching to remove the excess fabric. That 1/4" frayed nicely in the wash, but I think if I were to do it again I'd make my letters thinner. They seem a little too chunky to me.

But I couldn't just stop with the bed. I had to redo a few other things around the room. I replaced the embroidered cream sheers with my favorite blue, tan and brown striped curtains...

...and removed the big, framed tulip print that had hung above our dresser since we moved in with something smaller.

These lovely tin bird pictures were found at our local Dollar Tree a few months ago. I stained some old wooden drawer pulls, used Liquid Nails to put small penny nails into the screw hole in each one, then used them like giant thumb tacks to hold my twine-strung pictures.

Last night I found two white fabric lamp shades on clearance at Target, so now the only remaining green in the room is on our bedside tables, which doesn't bother me at all.
I'm still planning to use this treatment above our bed and am working on collecting photos and old botanical prints and other images to hang. I bought some vintage clothes pins on Etsy and am sooo excited to get that wall decorated- at last!