Parisian Pillows

I finally have a couple of creative projects to share with you, I finished two home décor pillows inspired by the  “Tres Chic” fabric sent to me by one of my readers.  It took me so long to get something sewn, I had a really difficult time trying to narrow down what I was going to make from the  fabulous Paris inspired print, it sparked a ton of ideas all taking more fabric then I had.  I finally decided on a set of pillows, a bulletin board and a matching lamp shade.  There may end up being more projects with the leftover scraps, we will see how it goes and how far I can stretch it by adding in other coordinating fabrics.  It took forever to post these pillows because they did not photograph well no matter what I did with them; I finally threw them on my sewing chair in disgust and walked away.  Upon my return I decided I would just leave them there and take the photo that way, I did my best but the pictures just don’t do them justice, but you get the idea anyway.

First up is a pillow featuring some cream twist satin cording to highlight the “Tres Chic” fabric in the center of the pillow.  I used my stash of coordinating Waverly fabrics around the main fabric to give it some dimension and interest, a very classic design.

I made the second pillow slightly larger using black piping around the center panel and some black beading on each end to give the pillow a little different feel, a bit of classic bling this time, truly “Tres Chic”.

Thanks for letting me share my Paris inspired project with you instead of the landscaping project I originally planned to post.  I will get around to that at a later date, it has a ton of before and after photos which will take me some time to write and format. 

My husband and I are getting ready to take a little trip so I may be away from my computer for a bit, or maybe not, if I decide to take my computer and post from the beautiful California coastline where we will be staying.  Stay tuned and keep watching; you never know what I will share with you next. 

See you soon, Laurette

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“Tres Chic” An Afternoon in Paris

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"Tres Chic" An Afternoon in Paris

Recently I received a surprise package in the mail, it was a beautiful Paris inspired fabric produced by Waverly Fabrics; one of my all time favorite home décor fabrics to work with when making elegant items for interior decorating projects.  It was a real surprise because I had not ordered it, with a little detective work I figured out who sent the lovely fabric; I was thrilled and pleased that it was one of my special readers, Kelly, who took the time to pick out a fabric for me she thought I would like and use.  Boy was she ever right, the fabric sparked hours of creative play time in my studio as I pulled out coordinating fabrics (also by Waverly) trims, patterns and my sketch journal.  I now have a huge project pile of fabric and notions all ready to create some Parisian home décor projects.

These are some of the coordinating fabrics I chose to color compliment the French fabric, the colors are cream, taupe, tan, charcoal and black; very elegant and being used in all the current decorating shows on HGTV (my favorite TV show for decorating and inspiration).

Some of the notions and trims (bling), I will be using on things like pillows, lamps, bulletin boards and a few other small projects made from the leftover scraps.

It looks like I am going to have to push back some of my other projects so I can begin creating with this gorgeous fabric and notions.  A big thanks to Kelly for thinking of me, I can’t wait to start sewing and posting the projects so you can see what I made, watch for them all during the spring months.

Wow, my project list is getting longer and longer, so little time and so much to create; I am one lucky gal who will never get board, thank goodness.

Thanks for letting me share my spring surprise with you, look for those Paris inspired projects as I finish them.  See you soon.  Laurette

Inspiration Fabrics:

“Tres Chic” by Waverly (Paris Print)

“Pen Pal” Mardi Gras Collection by Waverly (French words)

“Classica” Collection by Waverly (Large Stripes)

“Collection” The Alexander Henry Fabric Collection (High Fashion Ladies)

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A Splash of Spring Give-Away

Vintage Notions

I Won! I Won!

A Bit of Bling

As you know bling is my thing, having said that, it does not mean everything is covered in gold, silver or rhinestones.  In fact I have very little of it in my own home, something I intend to remedy in a tasteful, limited way.  I decided to start small with little items in my studio and bedroom.  I began the search for things I could add some sparkle to and found a few, here is what I did.

Recently my daughter gave me a very cute black stiletto tape dispenser, I loved it, and I put it on my work counter where it sat for sometime.  It was cute but lacking something, sparkle, a bit of bling, what could I do to glam it up?

Inspiration struck, why not put some crystals on it, some shoe bling just like designer shoes have.  I went right to Michael's to get some princess stick on crystals.  The actual inspiration came from a blog I look at daily, A Dress A Day.  The host did a copy of a Christian Loubouton shoe using silly plastic eyes to cover the whole shoe, just like the designer did.  Since I love sparkle I chose crystals instead and left some of the black shoe showing for better impact.  Very fun looking; it sparkles whenever I turn the lights on.

Next up were two pretty, heavy, glass containers with large black bows on them, they were from my Son’s wedding and the containers originally held small rose buds.  I have a dozen containers and could not figure out what to do to with all of them. I pulled out my glue gun, cutters and some glamour gem buttons and went to work.  I cut off the button shanks so I would have a flat surface to apply my hot glue to.

I hot glued a button to the center of each bow giving them some really elegant sparkle.  Now I use these little glass containers as candle holders and as storage for little bits and pieces while working on projects, what a pretty way to work.

As I looked around I spotted the black & white lampshade with the big black bow, I featured in my Black & White Bling post.  As much as I loved that lampshade, it was missing that special something.  Out came the gems and the glue gun, this time I added two buttons to the bow to give it more glamour.  Now it had the elegant sparkle I was looking for.

I am crazy about decorator pillows and have a great time making them myself.  This little pillow was made from polka dot fabric and ribbons and a pre-printed fashion fabric panel.  The pillow came out great but still felt a bit plain so I added some pretty crystals to give it bit of flare.  All these little projects helped to add small amounts of light to my studio, after all it is winter and the days are getting darker with all the cloud cover, every bit of light helps.

Last but not least, was a new faux-fur leopard pillow with an iridescent chocolate brown, silk backing, which I made in under an hour.  I added an elegant crystal pendant to the middle of the fur side of the pillow and covered a button in fur for the back side of the pillow. The pillow came out absolutely gorgeous, I made it for the center of my king size bed.  Every girl needs a little leopard faux-fur in her bedroom, adding a stunning fur pillow to the bed was just the right amount of glamour without going over the top.

There were a number of other small studio projects I completed but I decided to save those for a future post.  Since I will be adding more glamour to my master bedroom I will share the rest of the bedroom projects with you as I go along.  Look for those after the holidays sometime in January, unless I get the bug to do it as a New Years makeover, something like; New Year New Bedroom.  You never know, watch for it.  Thanks for letting me share my creative ventures from my studio.  See you soon.

Watch for:  Christmas Stockings for Charity and Elegant Elements, coming next week.

If you liked this post also look for past posts;

Black & White Bling

Pumpkin Bling

Holiday Sparkle

Buttons, Bows & Bling

Where to buy:

For crystals and pendants

Michael's

Glam Gem Buttons:

JOANN Fabrics

Paisley Crazy - Room Makeover

*Here it is the post I keep promising you, it is a big one with lots and lots of before and after photos of my guest room makeover.  So much to see and share, I debated breaking it up into several posts, but I decided what the heck, just do it, so grab your coffee or soda, sit back and enjoy. Here we go.

It is official, I have gone paisley crazy.  I came across a beautiful set of paisley prints at my favorite quilt shop, Homespun Harbor and just had to have them.  When I first saw the fabrics, I had no idea what I would do with them, they were a mid to large scale size print with some smaller matching prints and the colors were very bright.  I was considering a guest room makeover, in my new home, I hadn’t done anything to the room except drop furniture into it and make up the bed with the linens I purchased for another home. 

As much as I love color, could I be that daring and use those bright new paisley prints in conjunction with the bed linens already on the bed?  Was I that daring? The only other really bright colors were in the toy room, hot pink, and orange, lime green and bright blue.  The answer was “Yes I Could!”  I just had to convince my husband to go along with it, I told him it was just a guest room, not one he would be sleeping in so what could it hurt (unless he ended up in the dog house)?  He didn’t think it was funny but he was willing to work on the room with me (what a great guy).

I used these four coordinating prints in the room on a variety of projects. The fabrics are Gypsy Bandana by Pillow & Maxfield for Michael Miller Fabrics.  These great fabrics also come in a pink, green and red pallet as well as a red, yellow and green mixed pallet.  You will see some of those other color prints in future sewing projects.  I really did go paisley crazy when purchasing this line, I don’t know if I bought every color combination but I gave it a good try. 

First up is a reversible pillow from two of the blue complementary fabrics.  This little pillow was not the first project I did; in fact, it was the final piece before company came to visit the next day.  Talk about cutting it short.

Part of the guest room makeover was due to a relocation of my computer desk from the studio into the rarely used guest room.  I needed a better flow in the studio and more counter space, which meant I would need an office, so we moved it to one wall of the guest room.  This allows for use of all of the upstairs rooms, no empty unused spaces. I wanted to make all the accessories fit into the guest room so they would not stick out, requiring a bulletin board makeover.  I gave two frames a quick re-paint, with paint I had custom color matched, and then recovered them in one of the coordinating fabrics.

Next up was a new cushion for the top of my Mom’s cedar chest; it makes a great window seat on cold winter days.  The green paisley fabric was just the right fabric for the project.

An old chair was given to me by a friend who thought I could “do something” with it.  It sat in storage forever before I decided it would be a good fit for the desk.  This time I used spray paint instead of trying to hand paint all the nooks and crannies.  I pulled up my big girl panties and got to work spray painting it a lime green, oh boy was I stepping out of my comfort zone, but what the heck, it is only paint and could be re-done if I did not like it.

Next came recovering the chair pad with new batting and the green paisley fabric to match the window cushion.

Good as new and looking fun and funky.

The chair was not the only thing in the room to get a makeover, the desk the chair sat at was a complete disaster, it is over 60 years old and it was the desk my Dad sat at to study while he went to law school.  My older sister, I and my daughter all did our homework at that cute little desk and now it was back with me in my office.  The first thing I did was sand the heck out of it with my mouse sander (palm sander), rubbed it down, much better already.

I painted the desk to match the bulletin boards and the lighter blue paisley fabric, very pretty and ready to go back into the room.

Two low dressers were next; they are probably as old as the desk and needed the same treatment as the desk and chair.

This time only the dresser shells got the blue paint, with the drawers all getting the icy blue paint, we used on the guest room walls.  I added silver brushed nickel knobs in place of the old gold ones, very trendy.

Last but not least was the headboard, it was a wooden style headboard very dated and not good color matches for the other furniture.  I did not want to paint it since it belongs to another set of furniture I have in another room, what to do?I got the idea to make a headboard cozy to put over the wooden one, it could be removed to be washed or to change the look if I got tired of the paisley fabrics.  I used a matching piping along the top edge to give it some body, I was set to go.  I had several extra king sized pillows hanging around so I made custom pillow cases to create a softer headboard to sit against, kind of like body pillows.  See previous post for easy pillow case instructions any level sewer can use.

The paisley fabrics really brought life to a dull room making it colorful, fun and trendy, a great place to work and for guests to stay in, no dark burgundy and forest green for me.  Stepping out of my comfort zone was scary but lots and lots of fun to do. After all it is only fabric and paint and can be changed at anytime, but not too soon, I’m still tired from all the work.

Thanks for letting me share my office/guest room makeover with you.  See you soon with more colorful ventures from my studio and a peak into my all time favorite quilt shop.  Lots more creative fun coming your way.

Where to buy:

Homespun Harbor A Quilt Shop

341 Tres Pinos Rd. Ste.101

Hollister, CA  95023

831-630-9438

www.homespunharbor.com

Custom mixed paint and spray paints:

Ace Hardware

Hollister, CA 95023

Check your local area for an Ace Hardware near you.