Rawr - animal print

When I was 13 years old, much to my mother's chagrin, I was obsessed with animal print everything.  That year for my birthday I asked for a leopard print comforter, pillows, sleeping bag, purse and matching tissue packs.  Well look who's back in style now, Momma!  Next thing you know, everyone will be wearing those bucket hats I was obsessed with...

Savvy Home

Savvy Home

Habitually Chic

Flourish Design & Style

Gideon Mendelson via House Beautiful

Live Like You

Dwellers Without Decorators

The Zhush

The Zhush

The Decorista

Pillow Fix

Couches are expensive.  But you know what's less expensive?  Pillows.  An excellent way to give a couch a makeover without the expense of slipcovers or a new couch.  And one of the best places to look for statement pillows for less is on Etsy.com.  Here are some of my favorites:

SwoonStudio

SwoonStudio

WillaSkyeHome

WillaSkyeHome

PointDeAmour

fabricjunkie1640

fabricjunkie1640

fabricjunkie1640

habitationinc

Samantha2818

My room makeover - blue and green chinoiserie-esque

Back in college I subscribed to the same dorm decorating color pallet as 95% of all other sorority girls - Lilly pink and green.  Here is my bedroom from Sophomore year...

 In Junior and Senior year my room got a little shot of maturity...

But now that I have recently become the very mature age of 24, I think I could use a tiny bit more maturity in my bedroom decor.  Here is what my bedroom looks like now...

 And here is what I would like it to look like...

Domino

I like the relaxing blue, green color pallet, the mixtures of rich wood stain with silver and white paint, and the very sophisticated chinoiserie touch in the wallpaper.

Because I'm renting my room I definitely can't use wallpaper, so I'm reproducing the look using these fabrics:

This will be for the seat cushion at my desk and two throw pillows on the bed

This will be the seat cushion on the end-of-the-bed box

The last fabric will be sort of a take-off on this Van Gogh which I have always loved.  The background color will be a bluish green taken from the flowers in the first fabric.  The headboard will be upholstered in this plain background color and trimmed with dentil moulding to give it a chinoiserie flair.  The pillows directly in front of the headboard will be of the same fabric, but will have the almond blossoms achieved by sewing on branches and little white rosettes.

 I was a little afraid there would be too much viney fabric so I did a couple of drawings to see how I thought it looked together.

The second picture is maybe not beautiful, but I needed to look at something a little more realistic than my drawing.  I don't think it looks too viney, what do you think??

New York DIYs

Last weekend marked another historic battle in the ongoing war over which is better: NYC or DC??  I visited my sister for a long Halloween weekend and conducted a careful assessment of the city. 
Was it bitterly cold and kind of smelly?  Yes. 
Did they have good food and good parties?  Yes. 
Were the food and parties better than DC?  Debatable. 
Did they have funny pumpkins?  Yes

Plus one for New York. 
Do they have great chairs at a local market that could be reupholstered in really fun fabrics?  Yes! 

Originally I planned to find examples of fabrics that I thought would go well with each piece, but then I realized it was 10:15PM and I was tired and this would be an excellent way to help people exercise their imaginations!

I think this chair would look beautiful with a wide cream and light grey stripe.  If you wanted to have a little more fun, you could use neon piping in any number of colors!

Oh man I love these chairs.  I would reupholster them in exactly the same fabric and then put them in an entry hall on either side of a shiny black chest of drawers, with a bright vase of pink flowers, a gold mirror and a sparkly chandelier.  Maybe the front hall would have a black and white tiled floor, too.  Maybe.

This chair might be a tiny bit overwrought but if you wanted to make it a real statement piece you could paint the frame turquoise (or maybe silver!) and reupholster it in something like a midnight blue velvet. Then you could put a pretty throw pillow on it in bright pink, green or purple.

Here's a nice little mirror you could repaint.  I wasn't that excited about it but it was there...

Here's a fun bedframe that I think would actually be great left just the way it is.  Paired with very bright bedding or elegant, neutral bedding I think it would look fabulous.

On this settee I see a linen fabric of wide, lavender vertical stripes with grey or yellow patterned throw pillows (depending on how loud you want it to be)

I think this piece would be so fun in a bright preppy pink pattern, but if you don't have that kind of a house I think it would also look beautiful in a delicate grey rough linen.  Or maybe a beautiful subtle grey chinoiserie...

These were there, too.  I don't really know what they are so I don't have much to say about them except that I think they're pretty cool, although they would never go with a house I would own..