I've been putting a bit of effort into our master bedroom lately, taking care of some things that have been on the to-do list for way too long. Clearing all the clutter out? Check. Hanging pictures? Check. (This is ordinarily an easy task, but made more procrastination-worthy when one's walls are made of concrete or some other similarly impenetrable material.) Replacing the inadequate and ugly tab curtains that were hung on our French door when we moved in? Check.

I'm still keeping a lookout through various channels for some needed items (most notably, two nightstands and a rug). After looking online for curtain rods and not finding what I need at cheaper stores and choking over the prices at nicer stores, I have decided to forgo curtains for now. We have very nice, new cellular blinds, so the curtains would really just be for effect (which is perhaps not needed in a Craftsman home, where windows are often bare). I can add fabric accents in other ways: throw blankets, bedskirt, and -- throw pillows!


I found this fabric at Fabric.com and immediately loved it! It's hard to convey colors accurately through a monitor, but the pinks are just the nicest muted vintage rose colors, my favorite. One thing I have learned through looking at decorating magazines is that I always LOVE pink floral. Not a bombardment of it, mind you, but a touch here and there is just the thing to make my heart go pitter-pat. I ran it by Douglas and his masculinity was not threatened by the idea of having pink floral throw pillows in our bedroom, so I placed my order.

The feather pillow forms I used are 20" square, so I cut my squares of fabric to be exactly 20", too. With a bit of extra fabric taken up in the seam allowances, this works quite well for filling out all the corners of the pillow covers. I am so glad I took the time to make self-fabric piping, too -- I think they look much nicer that way. This tutorial at Craftsy is very good, if you have never done that before.


On the topic of decorating, I have never shared my favorite decorating magazine with you -- The English Home. It's my only magazine subscription and I do enjoy it! When I can keep a good attitude, that is, as everything featured is way out of my price range. BUT -- I recently read some great older posts from Like Mother, Like Daughter that helped me feel a great deal more peace about my home. Check out Frugal for Beginners, particularly #3 and #5 -- YES, YES, YES!!! Also loved Decorating Books and Beauty and Pinterest -- so many of the same thoughts that have been swirling around in my head, when I'm doing dishes or whatever, but expressed in a much more coherent and entertaining way. :) Thanks, Margo, for introducing me to this great blog through your sidebar! (I feel like I'm the last to the party, but better late than never!)

One of the two handmade gifts I made for Christmas this year was this heraldic bunting for Edmund's room. I haven't done a whole lot to decorate his room for him yet, but I liked the idea of going with a "knights and dragons" theme. When I put up Lavinia's bunting in her room, he was a bit wistful and wished he could have some more "decorations" in his room, too. I think he's pleased to have this!


Each little flag was a fun challenge to figure out. I bought 1/2 yard of various bright colors of cotton at Walmart and then just let my imagination go with piecing the designs. I did put in St. George's Cross because Edmund really likes the beautifully-illustrated book Saint George and the Dragon. The black and red diamond flag was the most time-consuming. I had a bit of fun with the ermine/black flag, because I've never printed on fabric before! I found an image of an ermine pattern online, fixed it up a bit in Photoshop, then printed it onto some white cotton that had been ironed onto freezer paper to stiffen it. It worked beautifully.


Edmund also had fun contributing to the new theme!

[not a dirty mirror with those specks, just a 100-year-old one!]
I have found that a cheap and easy way to decorate for Christmas is to use mostly natural objects... extra greenery cut from our tree, pinecones, dehydrated citrus slices, and a bowl of seasonal fruit. I set this basket, lined with a green plaid scarf, out on the sideboard of our built-in china cabinet, and filled it with apples, pears, pomegranates, grapefruit, oranges, and clementines. The amount and type of fruit varies as we eat our way through it, but it makes a festive focal point out of something we have on hand, anyway!

There's a prevailing thought that you shouldn't even THINK about Christmas until after Thanksgiving, but I have come to realize that when you are a homemaker in charge of decorating and festivities, that attitude is Bunk. Hopefully each year I will do better, but I often end up scrambling around, trying to get things pulled together post-Thanksgiving (or whenever we return from our travels -- this year, it was Nov. 30).


At least in one area, I am way ahead of the game -- stockings. I've been wanting to pull together some coordinated family stockings, but as is typical, I couldn't find anything store-bought that I really liked. So last August, I finally made some! Yes, August. I did NOT want to be doing Christmas sewing in December.


I used quilting cottons from Moda's "Lumiere de Noel" line by French General, which is a few years old and very hard to find. I finally found some yardage from a few small online quilting shops. I don't know how many more stockings we may need in future for more children, so I ordered some extra prints just in case! I have stripes and plaids for boys and florals for girls.


I made up my own pattern, which is just a simple and classic stocking shape, with a cuff for names. The stockings are lined with an off-white twill and the cuffs are made from a linen-like cotton, both from Walmart, of all places. I hand-embroidered the names onto the cuffs, using an alphabet lifted from one of my English embroidery books (it is copied from an alphabet on a sampler made by one of the Brontë sisters). The "linen" wasn't quite fine enough to do counted cross-stitch, so I traced each name onto freezer paper, centered and ironed it onto each cuff, and then embroidered over my guide. After 1/2 of the cross stitch was done (all the stitches on one diagonal), I carefully tore away the freezer paper with my fingers and tweezers, then finished the cross-stitches.


I really love the way they turned out, and I am THRILLED to have them done before the Christmas season started! They definitely pass my home decor test: "Is this something that would be found in an English country home?" ;-)

This is our first year having a real, live Christmas tree. It's an absolutely gorgeous Frasier fir tree that is so tall and full and smells wonderful!


Douglas had to snip a few of the lowest branches off, so I have been using the extra greenery for decorating around the house. I bought an advent wreath frame on clearance last year after Christmas, and this year I've been able to fill it in with fir branches, dried orange slices, and pinecones.


A little Nutcracker vignette. It's the only use my poor pointe shoes are getting these days!


A Jesse tree in our dining room, decorated by little hands.


Winter-y/Christmas books for reading. I love the vintage Little Golden book I found at a used bookstore for a dollar!


Douglas, the resident gardener, is forcing some narcissus bulbs. I don't think they'll be quite ready by Christmas Day, but they'll be a welcome whiff of spring come January. (EDIT: I was totally wrong. They were blooming by Christmas! Those flowers grow fast!)

Our house is coming together slowly but surely, by which I mean we are getting things unpacked, organized, and cleaned. It doesn't look very decorated at the moment and I know that will take time, but there are a few spots here and there that look cozy. Here's one in the dining room, where my husband hung our antique 1807 map of the British Isles (our first anniversary "paper" gift to ourselves -- Douglas likes maps and I like Great Britain, so there you go). The vintage table below it was left in the house -- I'm not sure how old it is, but with one leaf dropped, it makes a pretty sideboard. It was tucked out of the way and incredibly filthy. I gave it a cursory wipe-down but I still need to go back over with a bucket of soapy water and then some wood polish. It's pretty dinged up but I like the old patina.


[The ceramic leaves are a good place to store the treasures the kids pick up on our walks, although the polka-dotted chicken feather was not found in our neighborhood!]
Douglas likes a bit of color around the house, so we painted the dining room Benjamin Moore's "Palladian Blue" before our move (it was previously taupe and brown -- very dark). I had no idea until afterwards that "Palladian Blue" is a popular color but I can see why. It's a lovely duck egg blue that will look nice throughout all four seasons.

My goal is to get the dining room in shape before Thanksgiving (November 28), as we're hosting this year! One room at a time, one day at a time.

Before I went about choosing a fabric to slipcover our two wingback chairs, I needed to take some measurements to make a yardage estimate in order to have a rough idea of how much fabric I'd need. This helps me to know what my maximum price range per yard will be. In order to do this, I measured each individual surface at its longest and widest point. (As you measure, pay attention to which direction the chair fabric is running -- I always made my height measurement correspond to the vertical grain, or the warp, of the fabric.) The photo illustrates what I mean by "individual surfaces" in case you are a little confused already. :) If a measurement ended with a fraction, I rounded up to the nearest whole number.


[I forgot to label the "arm front," but you can probably figure out where that is!]
After measuring all these areas, I ended up with a bunch of rectangular shapes that all needed to be fitted onto a length of yardage. I decided to assume that my fabric would be 54 inches wide, since that is the width of most home decor fabrics. Now here is where things got tricky for me. I'm pretty visual and I really needed something to look at to figure out the most efficient way to utilize the fabric. Sooo, I used some graph paper to simulate my shapes. Each box represented 10 inches, so I drew a rectangle for my fabric that was just under five-and-a-half squares across. Then I cut out corresponding shapes for each of my measurements, remembering that certain ones (like the arms, wings, and seat cushion) would need two of each piece. This made things so much more easy and I was quickly able to push the shapes around to find a space-efficient layout. I found that if I choose a solid or very small print, I could make each slipcover out of 3-2/3 yards of fabric.

The reason the print of the fabric will affect yardage is that larger-scale prints will need to be centered and matched, which obviously reduces the efficiency with which you can lay out your pieces. At least I now have an idea of how much fabric I'll need (I'd say 4-7 yards, depending on the scale of the print) and can search accordingly.

You'd think that the next part, fabric shopping, would be quite fun, but I can be so indecisive. It doesn't help that my tastes far outrun my budget. ;-) In the past I have been drawn to muted, classic, antique-looking fabrics (especially gorgeous florals). Since my marriage, my husband has helped me be less afraid of color and trends. I still like the same things, but am willing to consider brighter colors and different prints. I want to choose something that is not overly feminine (probably no pale pink florals) and that will stand up to a household with children (no whites or creams, and I would prefer something with a print so as to more readily hide dirt and crumbs). It also has to look good with Douglas' (black) grand piano. Lately I have been more drawn to ethnic prints but I'm nervous about going for anything too trendy. I might prefer to save such things for throw pillows, which are less of a commitment.

It's good for me to write this down and get a clearer idea of where I'm going. How do you go about making home decorating decisions? Do you choose a color scheme first, or find a fabric you love, or just start thinking about a general 'look'?

Well! I did not expect to find a wingback chair so soon, let alone two, but God graciously blessed us with these chairs over the weekend! We found them at a garage sale we happened to be driving by (looking for a different garage sale, incidentally). They are made by Broyhill, in very good shape, with no odors or stains or traces of bugs (shiver), and we paid less for the pair than ONE ratty old chair would cost at Goodwill! AND, even though I plan on slipcovering them, in the meantime they match our couch's upholstery really well. :) What a blessing.

So, the next steps are to take some thorough measurements in order to estimate yardage, and pick an upholstery fabric for the slipcovers. This latter task is not as easy as it sounds, as I am a pretty indecisive person. Douglas and I have discussed what colors and prints we like and hopefully we can find some kind of middle ground there, especially within our price range. I will keep you up-to-date as this project progresses!

Through my recent birthday and the discovery of two very well-priced used bookstores, I've added quite a few books to my shelves lately. Here are a few highlights:

A Pictorial History of English Architecture by John Betjeman ($1, used bookstore) -- I admit, the name "John Betjeman" caught my eye first, but when I read the title I knew it would be a great addition to my library. The photographs are either black-and-white or the dingy colors of the early '70s, so the pictures alone don't make the book worth seeking out. However, John Betjeman is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide, and the basic information remains the same, 40 years later.

The English House by Sally Griffiths and Simon McBride (birthday present) -- I have loved browsing through this book. It features 11 different homes from various counties of England, ranging from the likes of the Tudor Country House to the Victorian Terrace House. The text introduces you to the history of each home and its present owner(s). It interests me to read how the owners have chosen to renovate and decorate their historic homes. Some of the rooms and furnishings were familiar to me from photographs and stories in my beloved Victoria magazines, so I have enjoyed getting more views and backstories beyond what the magazines provided. This book is filled with beautiful inspiration for those who love English Country style.

Romantic Style by Denny Hemming and Victoria's Secret ($2, used bookstore) -- Yes, this book was published by Victoria's Secret back in the day when it was a classy establishment! There's not a single scantily-clad female in the entire book, imagine that! Although a few touches here and there are a little dated (it was published in 1990), for the most part, the decor featured in this book has aged well after twenty-one years. Much of it is in the "English Country" vein, hence my interest. I've enjoyed flipping through the pictures (the text is less interesting) for decorating inspiration.

Do-It-Yourself Tailored Slipcovers by Sophia Sevo (birthday present) -- I was excited to receive this book because it covers a variety of chair styles and how to slipcover them. I have been talking about slipcovering our couch for a while now, but recently the idea to start a little smaller has appealed to me. :) Now I'm on the lookout for the perfect used wing chair and the perfect upholstery fabric, then away I'll go!

Simple Upholstery and Slipcovers by Carol Parks ($2, used bookstore) -- I was pleased to find this as a supplement to the above book. It goes into making slipcovers for couches and ottomans as well as the actual ins and outs of re-upholstering furniture, with step by step photographs. After looking through this book, I feel I have a pretty good idea of how an upholsterer works!! I think I might have the confidence to try re-upholstering... someday. :)

This past week while my parents were visiting, we all hopped in the car and headed south, hoping to find some spring. The farther we drove, the more green flora we came upon. Madison, Indiana (right on the Ohio River, and thus in a valley) was the most verdant place we visited. Green grass, budding branches, daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, violets, magnolia blossoms -- all were a sight for winter-burdened eyes!


We toured the Lanier mansion while we were there. The house was built in 1844, in the Greek Revival style, and has been filled with all manner of period-appropriate antiques.


This beautiful tea set was in the dining room on the main floor. Anyone want to pause for a cup of Darjeeling and a few cucumber sandwiches?


A wash basin in one of the ladies' bedrooms. I love the wallpaper in this room.


This antique quilt was probably my favorite item in the entire house. I can just imagine all the work that went into it. My favorite types of quilts are the ones that obviously take a lot of skillful handwork (such as hexagonal piecing or appliqué, as seen here). The hand-quilting itself is also a work of art.


My dad (the astronomer of the family) was captivated by this celestial globe. It looks like just the thing for a study or library!

Well, here's one way to keep track of a growing collection of earrings. This works best for the dangly type, which is the kind I wear most often.


The frame was a plain wooden one I found at Goodwill, housing a rather ugly print of ducks. :) I took the print out, lightly sanded the frame, and painted it with a champagne gold acrylic paint. Next I took an old toothbrush and dipped it in a darker gold paint and rubbed that along the length of the frame to give it a little dimension. When that was dry, I diluted some dark brown paint with water, then dipped the toothbrush in, flicking it onto the frame by running my thumb over the bristles in the opposite direction of where I wanted the paint to go. This was all to give it an aged look, and I loved how it turned out.


The wire screen was salvaged from some windows that someone had put out on the curb for the taking. It's the fiberglass(?) type -- not aluminum -- I'm not really sure what I'm talking about here but it is pliable and strong. :) I used a staple gun to attach it to the frame. It ended up not being quite as taut as I'd hoped but it works.

Now my earrings are a little easier to see, instead of being thrown together in a jewelry box. Next I need to figure out a way to organize my necklaces!

[Mom on the left, Dad on the right]
I made these silhouettes of my parents several years ago, just for an old-fashioned touch for my bedroom. Here's how I made them, step by step:

1. Take a digital photograph of your subject, in profile, against a blank white background. Open the photo in a graphics editing program and set the contrast to be as high as possible. Print the image.
2. Trace the silhouette and add any artistic or historical details you may fancy (I got some inspiration for the Regency-style touches from a book on silhouettes from our local library). Fill in the silhouette with black ink.
3. Xerox the silhouettes onto white paper. This is also a good time to adjust the size, if you need to.
4. Soak the paper in a brew of black tea to get an "aged" look. Quick dry the paper by placing it on a cookie sheet and sticking it in the oven on its lowest temperature. Repeat as often as needed.
5. Fit the silhouettes into matching vintage junk-store frames and hang them on the wall!

I've been enjoying the book Decorating Vintage Style from the library. It's by Christina Strutt (owner of the wonderful Cabbages and Roses) and is filled with lovely photographs of inspiring interiors. She eloquently captures why I love to have old things about me:

"When we look at vintage, we're aware of the generations that have gone before, of lives loved and lost, of possessions treasured. We feel at ease in vintage-style interiors, partly because of their coziness and comfort, and partly because the objects evoke a nostalgia for what we perceive as more carefree, innocent days."

Since we've been married, we haven't had much money to budget toward decorating -- but part of the charm of vintage style is not the monetary value of the items in your home, but finding second-hand treasures, repurposing or repainting, or collecting slowly over the years. You can't be in a hurry, which suits me just fine.


But right now I'm obsessing about finding (or making) a vintage-style quilt to act as slipcover to our couch -- an inheritance from Douglas' Gran'Molly, and very good quality, but the upholstery screams "EARLY 1990s!!!" ;)