Decor

Let me start by saying that I am extremely eclectic.  I like everything.  I like elements from almost every style imaginable so I have to keep a good mix of them all in order to stay happy and not want to redecorate all of the time.  My overall taste shifts frequently but I always love what I love just sometimes more in one area and less in others....  then tomorrow it shifts again.

For example, here are some of my home decor loves....  part of me would LOVE to live within the coziness of the Weasley Burrow:

I absolutely love the vintage Mid-Century loveliness of The Incredible Nest:

(Can you tell I have kids?)  :-)

Sometimes I can see the appeal of living inside a Bass Pro:

I LOVE the glam-y-ness that Tori Spelling decorates her homes with:

I am completely inspired by the craftsmanship and beauty that comes from the Arts&Crafts era:

I find instant comfort in 70s decor since I was brought into this world surrounded by orange shag carpet, dark wood tones and mustard yellow refrigerators:

But mostly I would LOVE to sell my house and move my family into a Gypsy Wagon:

Or into an Anthropologie catalog: 

.... And the list keeps going.  I would say, though, that my overall style could be described by one blanket term: "Bohemian".  So basically that is giving me the permission to combine elements from all of the above styles and although they may not "match" they "go-with" each other.  I love rich colors, textures and patterns and I love them to all be in the same space but also be aesthetically pleasing all together.   I might even be creating my own style here, but as long as I am happy with it, then so be it.  

As most of you know, I make everything...  and if I can cut my costs or reuse or up-cycle something (or all of the above) that will be my 1st choice.  In this case, I need new bedding.  And when I say need, I mean, I want something more stylish than what I currently have.  I keep trying to come up with an idea of a comforter/quilt for the bed, but I am drawing a blank.  I have been scouring the Internet for something.... anything that will provide some inspiration or at very least a direction.  So far, nothing!!!  So I am trying a new approach......  I am going to start from the ground up.  

The bed skirt, dust ruffle... whatever you want to call it is 1st to go.   If I had wood floors I would get a platform bed and this wouldn't be an issue but I have carpet, which I hate, so I try to cover up as much of it as possible.   My bedroom is painted a dark red color and previously I had a Red/Green/Black/Cream color scheme going.....  I know that sounds like Santa's outfit, but it worked much better than it seems.  A year or 2 ago, I painted my master bathroom a turquoise/aqua/robin's egg-ish color (we will call it Pool),  which threw off the entire color scheme in my bedroom.  So now the colors are Red/Pool/Black/Cream...  I have even considered throwing in mustard, but that is beside the point.  The point is, my bedding is still "rustic" greens and cream and my dust ruffle is a Hunter Green color.  

A while ago I saw this image from Urban Outfitters and I was inspired by the "duvet-cover-laying-over-creating-what-looks-like-a-bed-skirt":

I even like the floral duvet, too bad they don't make any of their bedding in king size.  Anyhow, I bought fabric to "sort of" replicate the look of this "bed skirt", but then I kinda thought that this would be a little too much Pool color in the bedroom so it has been on hold for months.  The other day I had this vision of combining the pool fabric with a woven hounds tooth, or something similar, and I have been a crazy maniac trying to get that accomplished ever since.  This isn't hounds tooth, but this is near exactly what I was envisioning (woven fabric on top, pool fabric peeking out on the bottom): 

I LOVE... the only problem is that the woven black and white fabric is a scarf...  that isn't big enough to go around the entire bed.  I could buy similar fabric but that would take forever to find and would get really expensive.  So then I thought maybe I could find a few cheap-ish woven throws that I could cut up and convert and I found this throw from ikea:

It has a similar look and would probably work, and I really like the fringe.  I am planning on a Chicago trip this year, so I wouldn't have to pay shipping and at $12.99, this seems pretty inexpensive.  But, when I start measuring and adding up, I am going to end up needing 4 maybe even 5 throws...  and suddenly it is no longer inexpensive.  So I started experimenting:

Left over micro fleece fabric in charcoal.  A little too plain for my taste....  so I thought I might gussy it up a bit.  I had some leftover super chunky yarn and I had a crochet trim pattern in mind for a future project so what the heck:

Another fail.  This one is a little too "fancy" and just isn't anywhere close to the look that I want.  So I scrapped the polar fleece and decided to go with all yarn, and if I use up all of my scrap yarns in the chosen colors, it could save quite a bit of money:

Bingo!  I love the way it looks, it's funky/handmade/vintage-inspired/retro/eclectic and ME.  Biggest downfall: it is going to take me forever to crochet pieces to go around 3 sides of my ginormous bed.... this little 12" wide piece took me a good 45 minutes to crochet.   Another downfall: even though I have a ton of yarn, I don't have a TON in these colors.  So that means that I would have to purchase some yarn and since I am crocheting, that means I will have to buy a lot of yarn.  However, since this is a bed skirt, I don't care what the content of the yarn is... so I can go with the junkiest/cheapest of yarns to get this guy accomplished.... but I still have to buy a lot of it.  Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing exactly how much yarn I will wind up needing so I can either jump in feet first or I can scrap it and start looking at other options.

Suggestions?  I am going for a black/white/gray/cream color scheme (with the hint of pool color from the fabric that I already have).  I figure if I keep with those non-colors, it will expand the range of patterns and colors that I can use for the future comforter/quilt.  I would like it to be rich with texture without looking too fancy or girly.  Help???  Please???      Anyone???  :-)

On a side note: It might seem handy to be "crafty" but as I might have just demonstrated, it is most of the time extremely exhausting and frustrating.....   although, I wouldn't change it for the world ;-)