Surprise, Surprise

I told you not to get too excited about this little project I have been working on.  Yes, that's right- more pillow covers.  I may have a serious problem with changing the pillows in our living room.  Rob and I were watching videos of Aiden from early last summer and we both said- "what are those pillows on the sofa? I barely remember them".  Maybe that's because I have changed them about 5 times since then.  This addiction stems mostly for my love of fabric.  Also, everything in the living room is pretty neutral, so I can easily make this change over and over again.  Of course, I need to take into account the dining room wallpaper and yellow walls.  I don't want things in the living room to clash too much.  I know I've said it before, but I want these 2 rooms to feel like they flow into each other.  Anyway, I won't bore you too much with my thought process, here is the sofa.  

 

I have really been liking the color gray recently.  It started with this $12 clearance item I found at Target this past winter. 

I love Amy Butler prints and have admired this print for awhile.  I thought that the gray colors would work with everything else and it has a touch of yellow to tie in with the dining room.  I wasn't sure if I would like the dark brown pillows with them, but I think they are a nice contrast.  

I also really wanted to make a pillow for the chair in the living room.  This chair is so pretty, but since Christmas, it has served as a place to put Aiden's monkey.  I felt like it was time to move monkey into Aiden's crib and make a pretty pillow to show off the chair. 

 I wanted a smaller pillow, so I picked up an appropriate size insert and made this cover for it.  It is the same color gray as in the other fabric.  

So, there you have it.  The bird pillows were just a little too much for me at the moment, and I like these more toned down pillows for now.  

*just a tip- I have a hard time finding samples of fabrics that I like and have sometimes ordered things online and been disappointed with the actual colors- they are often much brighter than they appear on the screen of my computer.  I noticed that a lot of fabric stores on ETSY sell remnants or fat quarters of fabric for how much a sample would be anyway.  I always figure I can use the pieces for other projects anyway.  So, this time I ordered some fat quarters of the fabric I was looking at and was then able to see what they look like in person before committing to a bigger order.  

Sorry, but not much to report

I am truly sorry for the lack of posts this summer.  It feels like things have been busy these past few weeks around here- I spend most of my time chasing Aiden around.  And, to be perfectly honest, there is not much going on in the decorating department.  Part of that has to do with contentment- there is nothing that feels pressing.  We have done most of the bigger things that we have wanted to since moving in.  I am sure there will always be things that I want to repaint, change, etc.  But, for now, we are happy with the way things are.  I may be lying a little bit here.  There are some small things that I want to change that I probably think about every day.  The biggest one is new chairs in the dining room- not around the table, but the 2 in the corners that we use when we have guests, and on a daily basis, mostly used as Aiden's time-out chair.  They are falling apart, and I loathe them every day.  One of the arms is falling off of the one and is becoming dangerous.  I desperately want these chairs from West Elm.  

I keep hoping maybe one day they will just show up at my front door.  The second thing that I wish for maybe every other day, is a new rug for our bedroom.  The one that we have is from Ikea and it produces this weird gritty white mess underneath.  I don't know what it is or why it happens, but I don't like the way it looks to begin with, and every time I clean the floor in our bedroom I get so frustrated with it.  I would really love this rug (also from West Elm and currently on sale).  

At the moment we don't have the money to spend on these 2 things, but hopefully sooner rather than later.  Until then, I will just keep hoping they show up at our front door.     

I do have one small project that I will be working on that I will post about soon.  Don't get too excited- but I will give you a little hint....