Mixing it Up

I have been doing a little sprucing up around the house lately. Nothing major, just tidying the bookshelves, framing pictures that have been waiting to be framed for a long time, placing candles around to be lit on these dark winter evenings. I always get the urge to do this after Christmas; once all the decorations are put away, the house looks so bare and I feel the need to make it a bit fuller, a bit cozier. 

Shortly after Christmas my sweet husband was in the book store and picked up this magazine for me... 

.....and it the most beautiful magazine I have ever seen. So many beautifully styled pictures, so much creativity, great articles about designers. I have spent many hours pouring over the pages soaking up the inspiration.

I was particularly inspired by this picture, specifically the pillows on the couch. I love the mixing of traditional patterns – the rose pillows that look like something my Oma would have – with the graphic, modern pillows that look like they could have come from IKEA. And I was inspired to try something similar in my living room.

Using some IKEA fabric that I fell in love with and bought a few months back, I made this polka dot pillow and added it to the others on my sofa. 

The fern pillow came with our couch and looks a bit more traditional to me, similar to the rose pillows in the magazine, while my new polka dot pillow is definitely a little more modern; the same could be said about the tulip pillow that I made a few years ago. 

I am not a decor whiz by any means, and I often fret way too much about how things look, but I am slowly realizing and accepting that if I decorate with things that I love and that mean something to me, everything will come together. I love this polka dot pillow, I love the pillows that came with our sofa, and I think they look good together. I may add a brighter colored solid pillow to pull everything together a bit more – maybe a teal pillow. What do you think? I really like the mixing of traditional and modern – it gives things a collected and timeless look and I love that.

I did put my polka dot pillow on one of my kitchen chairs and I love how it looks there.

And while I was out scouring the clearance aisles this past weekend I found these beautiful dinner napkins for a mere $1.50 each – I am going to sew these into a pillow and see how that looks on the couch. Worth a shot for only $3.00.

So in addition to crocheting (projects to show you soon), scrapbooking, and all the stuff that makes up regular life, I have been working on mixing things up in the living room. And I have really enjoyed doing so - making my home, where I spend so much of my time, a little cozier. It has also been nice to get the sewing machine out again...it had been a while since we spent some quality time together.