My Mom Has 17 Pillows on Her Bed

Yes, that's right.  17 pillows.  (That number does include the pillows that she and daddy sleep with.)  Even with the high quantity of decorative pillows, mom still manages to make her bed every morning.  The only times I've seen her bed unmade is whenever she goes out of town and daddy is left in charge of the 17 pillows.  Here's a picture of her pillows...you can't actually see all 17 from this shot, but trust me, they're there.  (FYI...my grandmother, my dad's mom, sewed everything you see pictured...the shams, pillows, bed skirt, as well as matching curtains).

I'm writing this post not only to brag about my mom's 17 pillows, but to show you some pillows I've made to decorate my bed with.  The pillows I sewed look fancy, but don't let the fanciness deceive you...they were VERY easy to make.  If you can sew a straight stitch, you can make some fancy pillows too.  Let me share with you how these fancy pillows came to be...

For the past few months I've been working on fixing up our bedroom.  Unfortunately, our bedroom has been the last room of the house that I've taken the time to decorate.  It's become the dumping ground for things I wasn't sure what to do with.  I don't know why I've neglected our bedroom, because apart from our family room and kitchen, I'm in my bedroom a lot.  It's the room I use for projects, sewing, exercising, folding laundry, watching TV, and singing and dancing when I'm home alone and nobody else can see or hear me.

Because I was spending so much time in my bedroom, I wanted to make it into a place that was a reflection of me...I wanted to walk into my bedroom and feel as if I belonged there.  So, this past March I began "Operation Fix Up My Bedroom."  I bought new lamps from TJ Maxx for $29.99 each, new picture frames from Marshall's that were $6.99 or less, and even bought some fake flowers from Walmart that I stuck in a vase that my cousin, Susan, gave us as wedding gift.  You can really cover up the fakiness of fake flowers by adding green moss at the bottom of a vase like I did.  You'd never know these were Walmart flowers.

Here's a close up of my picture frames...they are childhood photos of Brad and I, along with our initials that I cut from the front of our wedding program.  The frame in the middle I cut from the first page of our wedding program...I know you can't read it because of the glare of the flash, but the verse says "As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so shall your God rejoice over you", Isaiah 62:5.  Love it.  Here's a trick I've learned from The Nester...you don't always have to put pictures in picture frames.  If there is a sweet note that your hubby wrote you, or something memorable that you have in your keepsake drawer...pull it out and put it in a picture frame.  Not only will this add contrast to your picture display, but it will make your display very sentimental.  I love sentimental...

I forgot...I'm supposed to be blogging about pillows.  Sorry...I got sidetracked with my good TJ/Marshall's finds.  So, to spruce up our bedroom, I needed to find some fabric that I fell in love with.  After searching high and low, I found some from a Charleston home store, GDC.  The fabric was $15.00/yard, which is more than I usually pay, but still reasonable.  The fabric was on sale and it had my name written all over it.  This fabric reminded me of something that my grandmother (Mama Ann, my mom's mom) would have picked out for her house.  She would have probably used it as curtains in her living room or dining room...I just know it. 

Now that I had my oh-so-beautiful fabric, I devised a plan.  I loved the look of my mom's white quilt with dressy pillows.  I knew I wanted to use a white quilt as my bedspread as well, and then dress up the rest of my bed with pillows, a coordinating bed skirt, and matching curtains.  Here's what my bedroom looks like after the makeover...I wish I had a before picture too, I'll try and be better about that for later projects.

I managed to make the ruffly pillow shams too, but I would have to do some serious rethinking if I wanted to do a ruffle pillow again.  I'm not going to lie, it was time consuming.   I ended up having two yards of left over fabric, so I made a throw that I'm keeping at the bottom of my bed. 

So how did I make that fancy pillow again?  It's simple.  I sewed a square pillow using a straight stitch, stuffed it with Walmart stuffing, bought a covered button tool (again...Walmart purchase) and made a covered button in less than five minutes.  I found some fridge that was cheap (Hobby Lobby and Walmart have the least expensive fridge), and hot glued it on the pillow.  That's another trick I learned from The Nester...she hot glues everything.  After all is said and done, I now have a bedroom that I love, 9 total pillows on my bed, and I make up my bed 70% of the time.