Tag: color

Quick and Easy Crafts

Pillow talk, part 2

Jessica Smith

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about my pillow dilemma, so now that it is mostly solved I thought I’d update you guys on what went down.

Earlier this summer I shared with you a bunch of different options I was considering for my couch. Taking a page out of Young House Love‘s (and many other bloggers) book, I photoshopped my options before actually deciding on one.

Couch_Option2

I opted to go with option 1, buying a single coral poppy pillow from decomodwalls on Etsy.

After I got the pillow I of course wished I had gotten a larger size and multiple pillows, much like one of the other options in my original pillow talk post.

Couch_Option5

I let the pillow situation fade to the background for a bit, option to live with just one pillow for the time being. Then my neighbor and I got to talking about her pillow situation (don’t worry, we solved that problem!) and I realized that she could probably turn my single pillow into two! You see, Allie is really good at sewing (something I really don’t like very much). And, I had two pillows that came with the couch that had a fabric backing the exact same material as the couch.

So I asked if she would rip apart my new pillow and my two couch pillows, and then frankenstein them together. Being the kind person she is, she happily said “yes!”

Pillow Front

Pillow Back

Pillow Side

The pillows look great and saved me some cash money, too. Gotta love when that happens!

Pillows on Couch

Loving the added color in my living room 🙂 I still might add in a navy pillow, but for now I am quite content. 

Craft Projects, Quick and Easy Crafts, Wreath

Another floral arrangement

Jessica Smith

I got into another floral project the other night that was inspired by the arrangement I made last week and the boring TV show that was on right next to it.

Flowers by tv

Brian was watching Pardon The Interruption, which I actually enjoy during football season but find less interesting in the offseason (Sorry Tony and Mike!). So instead of watching TV, I started admiring my new arrangement. And then I noticed my other arrangement that I’d thrown together a while back on the other side of the room with additional flowers just waiting to be added. What better time than during PTI!?

My vase already consisted of these flowers…

Flowers3

… and these flowers…. err, branches….
Flowers2

… and the flowers on the right. But I wanted to add in the flowers on the left and a few more colorful sprigs of pink and purple flowers (kinda pictured below, and kinda pictured above).

Flowers1

The vase I wanted to use was a clearance score at Michaels. I paid less than $3 for this teal vase.

Vase

The vase is short and the mouth is narrow, but since the base is wide all of the flowers tend to lean to one side.

Much like the other arrangement, I started by cutting the ends of the wire off to shorten each stem. I did random lengths to not everything was the same height. To do so, I cut them with wire cutters/strippers. (Apparently, this might not be the appropriate tool to use since the top circles are used to strip the protective coating off of wire. But the bottom 3/4 inches are used for cutting wires, which the flowers are made of, so I stand by my choice! Plus, it was wayyyy easier than using traditional wire cutters. Ladies, if your hubby looks at you like you are crazy for using wire cutters, just ignore him :p)

Tools

Once all of the flowers were trimmed and re-trimmed, I started to assemble everything back in the vase. I ended up leaving out the accent branches — they have more of a fall color scheme to them anyway, so maybe I’ll be making seasonal arrangements later this year!

Unlike the other arrangement, I didn’t want to add filler to the vase, so the flowers had to stand on their own. When I had an arrangement that I liked, I gathered it up out of the vase and wrapped thread around the base where the lip of the vase would cover. This secured everything together, making the flowers stand tall instead of leaning to one side or the other.

Then, I filled in the opening of the vase with a few short, pink sprigs that weren’t tall enough for the arrangement. They add just a little more color and oomph to the arrangement.

Finished Floral Arrangement

As you can tell, I really like wispy arrangements.

This guy lives on the other side of the room on a game cabinet. It creates nice movement in the room because your eye is drawn from one arrangement to the other. I am thinking about moving the purple arrangement closer to our bar — the vase is filled with corks after all — and creating one more for the television cabinet. We’ll see.

Processed with VSCOcam with f2 preset

Even though I love to garden outside, I am not very good at keeping things alive inside. These fake flowers are a great way to bring the feeling of the outdoors inside without having to remember to water them!

Interior Decorating

Pillow Talk

Jessica Smith

I mentioned in my post yesterday that one of my areas of focus for my living room is adding punches of color. I have set my sights on finding the perfect pillows for my mint couch that aren’t just some shade of mint or gray. It’s been a challenge because the mint couch has a dingy gray tone to it that is incredibly noticeable when next to bright fabrics.

Pillows

I spent some time in Photoshop to try to get a better feel for how some of these pillows will actually look against the couch. Here’s what I came up with:

Option 1 pulls in some navy, green and coral. I love the poppy pillow and I think it will look really nice with the mint and teal chevron pillows I already have on the couch. I also like that the base of the pillow is white, so they are bright. I love the navy pillows, but since I am trying to brighten the space I think I’ll stay away from these for now.

Couch_Option1

Option 2 is just the poppy pillow. It pulls out the grays in my other pillows and makes the poppy pillow the true statement on the couch.

Couch_Option2

Option 3 adds in a pillow with no mint or teal at all. *Gasp* And I like it! I like that both accent pillows have flowers, but not in the same way.

Couch_Option3

Here’s a bunch of the other pillows I “tried” on the couch. I love each of them, but not on the couch (and certainly not together). The pillow in the center is the one I was originally going to purchase, but once I “tried” it on the couch, I’m not so crazy about it anymore. Glad I pillow tested.

Couch_Option4

My last option is buying two of the poppy pillow. I think I’m going to buy just one first (it comes in many different sizes from this Etsy shop) to make sure I like it in person. If that works out, I might add additional pillows.

Couch_Option5

As silly as it seems, I actually think having the coral on the couch is going to change the room a lot. If I learned anything from my class, it’s that color can make or break a room. Time to get my colors just right!