DECORATING WITH PILLOWS

Decorating with pillows in your home is an easy and thrifty solution to add new life and a punch of color to a room.  Pillows will give an instant renewal to the room.  It can take a dull coach or chair, and add a "wow factor" to the room.

Pillows are cheap and inexpensive, and can become the focal point in your room. They can make things flow together throughout the room tying the window treatment on one side of the room, for example, with the pillows on the coach on the other.

I love adding pillows to rooms.  Here are a few I've added in our home.

 In our family room.

 Our bedroom

The Living Room ...

...with a few of the pillows I've made.

The easy to make pocket pillow.

If you missed the tutorial go here to get the instructions.

(The brown pillow is another slip cover pillow.)

The great thing about pillows is that you can change them out with the season.

These are slip covered pillows I made and had out this past fall.

This Pottery Barn inspired pillow I made works great for spring!

If you missed the tutorial you can get the instructions here.

Pillows are great in groupings of twos or threes.

On a recent trip to Ikea, I noticed they also use pillows to decorate adding the much needed color and punch.  See how the polka dot pillows make the coach go from bland and boring to WOW!

 

I enjoy using pillows to spruce up a room, do you? 

I'm linking to

Pillow week @

BE INSPIRED BY DIY'S

Yes it's true, I've been featured!!! yea!

Thanks Beckie! at My Knock Off Decor for featuring my Pottery Barn Inspired Topiary.

I'd encourage you to drop by her blog Knock Off Decor  to see my feature and read some of her posts. She features great knock off projects from various places like Pottery Barn, Anthropologie and Ballard Designs just to name a few. Her sight is a great place to get inspired! I know I've been inspired after visiting.

To view the original post, go here.  

As promised here, today I'll share with you how I made this - seed pot.

It's another one of those very easy projects that even a child can make.


Here's what I started with....

...One .49 cent clay pot.

(purchased from a thrift store)

White craft paint - diluted down with water

to make a white wash.

Seed packets

( .5 cents each from a thrift store)

And a brown paint pen.

Using the white wash, I gave the clay pot one coat of paint allowing it to completely dry.  I then sketched the words "seeds" free hand with a pencil, and then traced over the word "seed" with the paint pen.

It isn't perfect by any means, but that adds to the "antique" look .

Lastly I placed the seed packets in a random arrangement in the newly created seed pot. When I think of spring, I think of planting and new things coming to life in our garden, so I thought this was a fitting addition to the spring vignette.

If you missed the DIY of my spring vignette, you can view it in its entirety here and here.

Have a great weekend!

Decorating and Cleaning

It's a beautiful bright and sunny day here today, and it has me in the mood for cleaning and decorating!

Source - Graphics Fairy

I've been busy doing laundry by the basket full, but, as you may have noticed, I've been busy doing some cleaning up @ Thrifty Parsonage Living as well. I've made some cosmetic decorative changes here too.

I've been wanting to do this for some time, but I was scared off by reports of the mess created in some of your blogs by changing from the old template to the new one. So after trying a few things on my test blog, I took the plunge!


Do you see what cleaning I've done and the new decor?

~New tabs, fonts, layout, and larger viewing area~

Those of us who love to decorate, love to move things around and give them a new look....right?

There are a few more changes I'd like to do here in the next few days.  Come back for a visit and see the changes.


Have you been in the mood for spring cleaning and decorative changes lately?

DIY ARTWORK

A few days ago, I promised to share 

how I made my spring artwork. 

If you didn't get to read the post, go here to read it.

This project was another of my "use what you have" projects.

Here's what I gathered from around the house to make it.

-5 X 7 Picture Frame

- Moss

- Eggs

-Scrapbook Card Stock Paper

- Hot Glue

I started by removing the glass from the frame, and replaced it with a piece of textured card stock paper (cut to 5 X 7 inches).

I then laid the moss out in the arrangement I wanted. 

The moss was then hot glued to the card stock paper.

Last year I bought a bag of eggs at Easter.

I took 6 of them from the bag and added...

... sticker letters to spell - SPRING.

I then glued the eggs to the moss.

This was so easy to make costing very little because

I used what I had.

I'm linking this post to...
Just a Girl

 

THE CEDAR CHEST

The Nester over at The Nesting Place is having a linking party entitled -

National {not really} Take A Risk Day.

One of the first post I did on this blog was entitled -

80 Year Old Cedar Chest Makeover

Below is a summary of the post,  to read the post in full go here. 

I had the wonderful privilege of inheriting my grandmother's 

80 year old cedar chest.  It came to me in very poor condition. 

There was a leg broken off, hinges disconnected, 

veneer chipped and missing and  part of the trim molding was missing.

  My husband thought it was beyond repair; and maybe the 

dump was the best place for it. 

I'm a very sentimental person and said "but it was grandma's!"

It sat in my husband's shop for quite some time, but then one day I was surprised and delighted to find my husband (who's very good at restoring and building furniture) busy working on the chest. 

 The veneer was in such bad shape we decided simply to remove it altogether.

We then sanded the cedar wood...

Here is the BIG RISK

 followed by 3 coats of Valspar black satin paint.

We did know how it would look painted.

Would the imperfections show?

We however were pleased with the end result.

 Here are a few photos of it sitting in my living room.

What do you think of the transformation?

 

IKEA VISIT

I had such a great weekend this past week. Our family did something we've never done before: we had a 2 1/2 day get away to a near by city.  We stayed in a lovely Embassy Suites Hotel. We enjoyed each others company while relaxing, swimming, viewing museums, fine dinning along with some shopping.

Here is a view from our balcony at the hotel.

Everyone got some R and R; and we did a lot of catching up on each others lives.

While at the museum, we went through a butterfly garden.  Here are a few of the many photos I took.  They were so beautiful...

Our daughter is a beautician, and did all the girls' hair before our big night out.

We enjoyed a wonderful dinner together at a nice restaurant!

It seems like a lot of bloggers have been shopping at Ikea lately -Beneath My Heart -Thifty Decor Chic  -Lettered Cottage .

They are not alone!  On Saturday morning we all headed over to Ikea for some great shopping.  We all attended a cooking demonstration. A big bonus was given to the first 10 guests. 

Prizes!!! 

We all left with a bag of Ikea goodies.

-measuring cups

-napkins

-spoons and laddle

-dinner serving tray

-ikea bag

I took my camera in the store intending to take photos, but I got so caught up in the shopping and having fun with my family that I completely forgot to take any photos.


I did, however, get a very cut little faux plant that I've added to my spring vignette in our dinning room. Doesn't it look real?

Some people are opposed to faux plants, but for someone who doesn't have a green thumb, they're great! 

Both Ikea and Pottery Barn feature faux plants, so I'm guessing it's ok to use them in my home.

You can see it displayed in my dinning room....here!

Thanks for stopping by and visiting!

DIY APPLE BLOSSOM BRANCHES

 Have you noticed all signs of spring popping up in blog land?

If you follow my blog you'll notice that

I've had a spring theme going on this week.

Here's the  project I've been working on the past few days.

Inspired by Pottery Barn 

with their faux cherry blossoms displayed in a white pitcher vase.

Then I stumbled upon two blogs that made their own cherry and apple blossoms.

Mary's Meanderings ~apple blossoms

Susie Harris ~ cherry blossoms

They inspired me to make my own using their technique.

Here's mine in a spring displays.

  

As you can see in the photo below, 

my display looked like it was missing something.

To fix this problem....

... I added books under the Ikea plant and  SPRING

art work to the wall.

 Come back and

I'll share with you in a later post how I made

the art work and seed pot. 

Please come back for more!

Now come and join the fun!  Here are the parties I'm linking to.

I don't have a mantle to decorate, this is what I have instead and will link it to ~The Stories of A2Z Spring mantel linky:
House of Hepworths 
Fireflies and Jellybeans 
Finding Fabulous 
Today's Creative Blog