Color in the Bedroom!

I am very excited about this project. It has been a long time coming.

We have lived in our house for 7 years now, and our bedroom has been too blue and boring for 5 of those years (well, it was boring before that too, except it was white then, which was even worse). Finally, it's beginning to take shape and show some "life"!

We had guests coming in town this weekend (staying in our bedroom), and so I used that as my incentive to get a new duvet done that has been in the works for over a year and a half now.

Incase you didn't already know that I love natural fibers...well, now you do! I love linen and cotton, wool, silk, bamboo...you get the idea! So, for our duvet, I had bought some chocolate brown linen on sale over a year and a half ago. I wasn't quite sure how it would all come together, but that's ok...I like it when a project takes on a "life" of it's own and becomes something even better than I had originally planned. That was how this was.

My anniversary present for this past year was fabric. 28 yards of Anna Maria Horner's Good Folks line to be exact. Before that even though, I had bought 3 yards of another of Anna Maria Horners fabrics (are you catching a theme here?!), from her Garden Party line to use w/ the chocolate brown linen (Navy Centerpiece). Well, as I had all the Centerpiece fabric laid out down the center of the duvet, I realized it was too much. While I love the fabric, I didn't like it in a 2 and a half yard strip going down the center of the duvet. A dear friend happened to be staying w/ us from NY, and she helped me figure out a plan to break up the long strip. The result is better than I had hoped for! For the reverse, I had originally planned on a solid chocolate brown linen. But I found I didn't have enough yardage, and even piecing it together would not create enough to match the front side. So, here's where the anniversary fabric came into play. I decided to piece together some prints from the Good Folks line to form a center for the reverse, then do a wide border in the linen ( I still had to piece the linen). This turned out to be quite the task. Since this is a duvet and not a quilt, there wouldn't be any quilt stitching to reinforce the pieces, and I didn't want to take any chances of a seam popping open while a fun-loving toddler is jumping on the bed. So, each and every seam is triple reinforced (stitched, serged, then flat-felled). And believe me, w/ both the front and reverse being pieced, that creates ALOT of seams! This thing has been my "baby" for 3 weeks now! I am so happy that it is finally done, and best of all, it's one of my favorite projects ever...and now I get to snuggle under it every night this winter!

Here's the "before" of our bedroom. Boring as can be. Plus the curtains are a tad too long and they drive me NUTS!!! This is the old duvet we've been using for the past 8 years...it was starting to get holes in it! In the summer, we have been using a blue matalesse coverlet (the same shade as the walls and curtains almost. BORING!)

Now, here's the duvet. The "front":

Now the "back". I really don't know which side I like best...I love them both equally.

The other part of my (rather long winded) story, is that I have wanted a headboard for our entire marriage (9 and a half years). Since we had guests coming this weekend, and a new duvet, I really wanted one. Here's the cheapest, easiest, most "bang-for-your-buck" headboard I have ever seen! Really, when you hear how simple it was and how cheap...you're gonna want to try it for yourself! I hope you do! This technique (NOT my idea, by the way! I read it in a decorating book years ago, and then later researched it online a bit and found more instructions) is SO COOL! It was even NO SEW!

Here you go: the headboard.

All it is is fabric and liquid starch. Really. Oh, well I did use iron-on hem tape to hem the edges first, but it's totally no-sew! AND...the bottle of liquid starch only cost $1.58. Yep, that's right, and it didn't even take the whole bottle to do this headboard. Maybe half.

My list of reasons why this starch and fabric wall adornment idea is so cool:

1.It's cheap

2.It's easy. (really, it took less than 10 minutes to get this up on the wall. A bit of time was spent ironing on the fusible hem tape, but that was it!)

3.It leaves no marks on the wall when you take it down. (I tried a sample first, and it's true...it's totally safe for walls! If you rent, and are not allowed to paint...this project is for you!!)

4.You can even re-use the fabric when you decide to take it down off the wall, just wash it!

5. You can't mess up this project...it's so easy to fix any "mistakes".

There...you want to try it too, now don't you? If any one is interested, I could briefly outline how I did it ( I did it a bit different than the instructions I had seen online had said). Just let me know. I now have lots of plans for this technique all over my house! No more boring walls for me!

While I was at it, I decided to make a set of linen pillowcases, trimmed in a medly of Good Folks fabrics. And since I have a special fondness for travel size pillows (I sleep w/ mine every night), I made a matching travel pillowcase size as well!

If you've read this entire post...I am truly amazed! I know I am a bit wordy in my descriptions of projects, but this is my craft diary, so to speak, and I like details. I hope that I may help inspire other crafters, just as I have been inspired by so many others out there! Thanks for letting me share!

~Ruth Elizabeth