Everyday, I am loving our new, plush, lush, cozy bed more and more.  Its hard to pull myself out of it every morning and I find that its pretty nice to lay there, sip my coffee and check emails on my IPad instead of heading over to the cold studio, turning on the heat and reading my emails while waiting for the room to warm up. Especially this week, I've had a kidney infection and that extra laying around time in the morning has been welcome.

As a matter of fact, I stayed tucked in all day on the 29th, and got good and rested up.  At least it was an extra bonus day on the calander so, I don't consider it a real day off.

(years and years ago, from Country Almanac- by the way, the stylist pulled pillows from all over the house to pile into this picture and I never thought they matched)

We've never had a head board that we could actually lean against while sitting up in bed and reading or watching TV before. I've always gone for found objects, cool junk, or vintage iron headboards in the past. 

(before this new bed, I used a mantel as a head board)

Even with a stack of pillows, all of  my previous beds were not good for leaning against.

Our padded head board with soft pillows against it has completely won me over.  But I thought the vast expanse of linen was a little too plain for my taste, no matter how nice it was to lean on.

It kind of reminded me of an inspiration board, so I thought I'd turn it into one.  But I didn't want anything to ruin its comfiness factor.

 I decided to print some vintage pictures onto some soft, old, lawn hankies, and simply pin them up with pearl topped pins.  The linen covered padding is nice and tight, and deep, so the pins went straight down in, and I don't have to worry about them poking into my skull.  That would certainly have taken away most of the comfiness.

I pinned a few soft flowers and some lace up between the pictures to make it look like a banner.

In my stash, I have zillions of old pictures and books, but I wasn't in the mood to sift through it all till I found just the right ones.  So, I made a quick visit to the Graphics Fairy and grabbed a couple of pretty drawings of birds and roses.  I had to do a little bit of editing to get them just as I liked, but not much. This is two pieces that I edited together.  As the kids from Glee would say, its a "mash up" of images.

Beth prints on fabric all the time, I'd never tried it this way. I've used purchased sheets of canvas, but its expensive and I didn't want it stiff like the stuff I've bought before.  She sent me home with the materials I needed and it was every bit as easy as she said it would be. I practiced on a couple of other pieces before I pulled out the vintage, embroidered hankies. 

First, I ironed the hankies, then pressed one onto a full page Avery label, and smoothed it out.  A hankie isn't quite the same shape, so I trimmed the edges really good. My worry was that something would tangle up inside the printer and it would be all screwed up like the bobbin part of my sewing machine is right now.  But that is another project story and one that didn't turn out as nice as this one did.  You don't want to hear about it, and I don't want to think about it.  I'm avoiding that sewing machine, with its giant web of thread.

Anyway, I smoothed the hankie onto the sticky backing of the label, trimmed it up, and slid it through the printer, no problems.

You can't really tell from the photos, but the cloth has some pretty little hand done touches to it.

So far, they seem to stay in place, even with pillows bunched up against them while I'm reading and enjoying my coffee.  I purposely hung them a little tousled and messy, so if they ended up that way it would look natural.

And the whole room feels serene, not busy like previous incarnations of the space.

PS- thanks to all of you who have purchased my Three Wire Workshops!  (nest, crown, and wreath) Its selling well, and I appreciate that. 

 

and another PS- notice the Google Friend Connector is missing from my side bar? Yep, they are no longer working on Typepad blogs as of March 1st. If you want more information on how to follow a blog, Marianne has done some homework and explains it all very well here.

She also has a good tutorial on using Google Reader here

and here.

I have asked Hope, who designed my blog, to add a connect button for all of these various ways to follow a blog for me.  She'll be doing that soon.