I'll fly away

My room is too crowded for me to really love it - but I'm getting little touches that I like. :) Here is my new bed set up. (Please ignore the magenetic strips - they were there when I got here and I'm scared the wall behind it will be a different color and full of holes if I take them down.)

The bedspread is a duvet cover that my older brother got me for Christmas from overstock.com. The art is a wall decal from Target. I've been browsing the wall decals on etsy for forever - but could never find anything that was PERFECT - - so I went with this from Target - cheaper and no shipping until I find something perfect.

I like it for now. :) I like that I can lean against the wall still without messing anything up!

The Bedroom is Finished! (Almost)

Of course there are always things I wnat to fix/change. (Curtians, professional framing for the family tree, etc) But for the most part the bedroom is done!

See my Flickr account for "notes" on the pictures with stories and such. Flickr stream

Family Tree Wall Update

I posted a while ago about creating a family tree for my antique bedroom. (See this post).

I ordered a number of antique oval Italian frames from ebay (sans glass), made copies of old family photos, bought some thick foam board and satin finish modge podge and went to work on a photo collage. (I'm going for art/design - not heirloom - here)

I've also collected a few gold and white saucers and small bowls at thrift stores that I'll either hang on the wall or use to set on top of dressers and such to collect jewelry, coins, etc

This is what I have so far:



This is a close up on the calligraphy and some of my favorite names on my family tree. They're just pretty names. (Calligraphy work the art of Lisa at Pen and Ink Calligraphy)

These are my paternal Grandfather's parents. Great-grandma is a little off-center there, but oh well.

Here is my father as a wee one. (I'll probably re-do this one later to get rid of the line at the bottom - but for now it works) There's a picture of my younger brother about the same age and they look like twins.

and my mother

One of my ancestors was a B movie actor. Here's one of his head shots. I can't recall his name at the moment..I have it written down somewhere (he's a second cousin or something...not on the family tree)

Some of the plates I've collected.

Hopefully I'll get the family tree framed and everything on the wall soon!

Everything I Know About Pillowing In One Pillow

I had enough curtain fabric left over to make a pillow sham. (And I think I'm going to make some kind of circle pillow or neck roll too - - but I need to get some pillow stuffing first.)

I'm going to show you what I know about pillow making (which isn't much)

I called on everything I've learned in the past few weeks of pillow making and put it all together. The pillow shams I bought for my master bedroom had batting in the front - so I thought that sounded like a good idea - and then I thought having a lining behind the batting would be a good idea as well.

So here is front fabric (face down), batting, and a layer of simple tan fabric that you won't see on the finished product.


I noticed on my other sham that they "quilted" a line about an inch from the edge of the sham - so I decided to do that as well.

After that it was time to put on the backing. For an envelope back you want a piece of fabric that is about 1 1/3 times the length of your front fabric - and then cut that in half. Place each pieces so that it is even with one side of the pillow and they overlap in the middle. Hem the "overlap" edge on each piece.

Now it's time to add the piping and pin it all together!\

Make sure the right sides are together (so the design on the front and the smooth edges of the hems for the backing) - then work around the edges and pin in the piping so that the rope part is facing the center of the fabric and the excess fabric is coming out towards you. Like so:

At corners - snip the fabric part of the piping so that it turns easier.

My least favorite part is joining together two ends of piping. I suggest you avoid doing this on a corner at all costs. But this is what I do. I pull out some of the rope and snip it off and then rip out the seam in that part of the fabric so that it's open.

Then I lay the other end of the piping inside the new "open" piping and wrap the fabric around. I make sure when I pin all the fabric in place I pin right where the two join together.

When it's all pinned it will look something like this. Notice that you cannot see the piping from the outside - but it's under there!

Sew. Carefully. I put the piping under the left edge of the foot of the sewing machine so that I can keep it lined up - you have to sew very close to the actual rope for this to work. Go slow - especially on corners.

So it's all sewn together and it looks like this (Yes, I skipped the "iron the lining" step as you won't see it anyway and I hate ironing.Besides - the nice creases helped ;-)) It was washed (IMPORTANT!) - it had just been refolded for a while.

Then you flip it inside out and it looks like this

Then you stuff a pillow in it, realize you made it too big, stuff another pillow in it, realize you were suppose to do the "quilt" edge through the backing too to keep the pillow in place -it's not too big, and decide you'll do that later because you just want to put it on the bed for now.

Maybe I'll sleep in the guest room tonight...that looks comfy....

Accents

This is the "because it is my blog and I can post random pictures if I want to" post. They're all tangently related to the theme of my blog . . . at least in my mind!

First - a little figurine that I picked up at an estate sale a couple of months ago. She now resides atop my dresser. (The book that you can't see the title of is a 1908 English textbook. So cool!) Oh, and the candle is "Wicks 'n' more" kiwi scent. I love that candle! You get the scent without ever burning the thing. I'd like to order a couple more so that the scent will fill the entire room. I have one on my nightstand as well.



I also got a chair for my bedroom a few months ago. Here is Wilbur snoozing in his new favorite place. I need a side table, lamp, and to get my family tree framed for the wall above the chair - but that's going to have to wait a bit as those things are pricey! I do have all the stuff to start framing the old family photos - so hopefully those will be done soon and I can show ya'll those.

And here is Mishka on the small dresser. The frame behind her was originally the one for the family tree - - but the family tree grew to a larger size. So, that frame is propped up on the wall right now while it waits for an alternate assignment. You can't really see it well right now - but I'm collecting white and gold plates from thrift stores - there's two on the dresser there - and I have a few more to use as well. My plan at the moment is to hang the empty frame on the wall and then put some plates inside of that. We'll see!

The Empty Space in My Bedroom

Here are a few pictures of what I have done so far in my bedroom.

Bedspread/Curtains/Pillows are all from Khols. It is not a color scheme I was looking for - but I fell in love. I made the headboard out of some MDF, quilt batting, fabric, and a staple gun. I wish I had taken "process" pictures, but oh well. I plan on doing something similar in my guest room - so when I get around to that I'll take pictures. The mirrors on the side of the headboard are from Kirklands. Lamp is from Steinmart. The cushion on the chest at the end is covered in the same fabric as the gold on the headboard.

I found the dresser at a consignment store and the beautiful print at a thrift store. The things on top are totally different now - I really should take an updated picture. I have some antique books up there now.

Just a close-up of the pretty lamp :)

So, yes, that's all pretty - but when I'm sitting in my bed I see this:

So I've been brainstorming what to do with the space - here is my original sketch:

The "big" frame in the middle will be a copy of my family tree. I'm having a calligraphist re-write it for me on pretty paper and such. Around that I'll put a collage of family picture in sepia tones. I have a few antique frames that I've collected from ebay - and am continuing the search.

The hardest thing to find is, of course, the chair. I don't' have much space there. I need it to bee green and/or gold, and I want an antique style (I drew a wingback - but I really want more of the style that is in the print over my dresser) - and I don't want to pay hundreds of dollars for it! ha.

I have the lampshade I want on the lamp on the table - but I still need the table....and the lamp. I also need the tall vase - which I believe I'll put in the corner by the dresser rather than where it is sketched at.

I'm kind of use to the white walls of the apartment - but I'm thinking about starching some fabric up on that wall - - if I happen to see the perfect print I'll probably buy it -but otherwise the white walls don't bother me all that much.

The calligraphist's samples should be coming in the mail any day now - so my next project is to figure out who to kick off the family tree so that it all fits in the frame I have....or break down and get the whole thing and just buy a new frame.

I'll keep you updated!