Diane Henkler

Currently Indulging… with Pretty Bed Pillows

Happy Monday…

Last night, I got back from 3 jam-packed days of fun and learning at the Haven blog conference in Atlanta. I had a good time, but my mind is on overload. It was non-stop – sessions, learning, meeting hundreds of bloggers, catching up with friends and… parties!

You also come home with tons of inspiration not only from all the bloggers you meet and what you learned in the sessions, but in the way of new products you receive, literature, and catalogs from companies that have come up with innovative or pretty new products to make a DIY’er swoon.

I had every intention of finishing a post on how I trimmed out new white bed sheets, but when I woke up this morning, all I wanted to do was make some tea and snuggle back into the soft new sheets and go back to sleep. I did for a while, but then felt like a slacker and thought, why not bring my work up to my bed.

That is exactly what I did. I grabbed a tray from my family room and then took the pile of information I accumulated at the conference and brought it to my bed to work while snuggled in. It was a nice little indulgence.

Last week I got new sheets for the bed…we desperately needed them because a little tear became a rip and after a few weeks it got bigger and bigger and became a hole when my foot went through it. I usually have a back up set for when we have sheet emergencies like this or when one set is in the wash, but didn’t have a back up anymore.

Remember the post I wrote about Feeling Good in your Home? You know that sheets come in many different qualities and this is not a time to skimp. I want soft and smooth sheets. If they feel scratchy or pill – it affects how I sleep.

It’s not always thread count that matters. While threadcount has long been used to determine how soft or unsoft, how luxurious or cheap a sheet is, it’s definitely not the end-all be-all. I always check the type of materials used as well – often a variety of cotton, linen or even polyester and other fiber blends like rayon are used. The gold standard is Egyptian Cotton, Sea Island Cotton, or Pima Cotton. The new set I got online from NovosBed are Pima cotton. They are a 600 thread count sateen set. They feel a bit thicker than the last set I had and feel so good.

When I put the new set of sheets on, I did feel like the pillow cases needed a pop of color and detail, so I went to my ribbon stash and sewed it on along the edges of the 2 pillowcases in the set.

Since we have a king size bed, but prefer standard size pillows to sleep on, I cut the pillow cases down to standard size simply by turning them inside out and cutting the end off 6-inches and then sewing it closed again.

Adding the ribbon to turn the cases into pretty bed pillows and making up the bed with the new sheets reminded me of when I worked in retail display where I had to make 5 – 6 beds a month with the featured bedding the store was promoting. I would have to iron the skirt, comforter, spread, or quilt as well as the sheets and pillowcases to make each bed look perfect. I even did a touch up with a steamer on a daily basis since shoppers would take them apart and kids would play on them.

I normally do not iron my bed sheets, but to make the photos look nice for this post, I brought the iron up to my room last week and pressed them! A little deja-vu. Normally I would take the sheets right out of the dryer and put them on the bed – wrinkles and all. :-) If you want a nice crisp look and not slave over the iron, just dry your sheets 95% before immediately stretching to fit your bed. Obviously you’ll want to do to this in the morning so that they are perfectly dry by the time you crawl in. I bought the quilt at JCP earlier this year. It is from the Jonathan Adler collection.

I took a few more photos this morning as I read through all the catalogs and info from Haven. For now, I am still snuggled in and getting inspired with lots of cool new products and ideas…I will be sharing the news about some of the products and companies with you in the coming months.

The rest of my day is all about catching up. I had planned to answer your questions from my last post while I was in Atlanta, but I kept losing WIFI and finally gave up.

If you asked me a question, I will be answering all of them this afternoon. If you still have one, don’t be afraid to ask.

See you back here on Wednesday. I will be showing you the progress I have made in the transformation of my daughter’s bedroom. I may even reveal what it is going to be :-)

If you enjoyed this post you may also enjoy the easy to follow DIY Decorating Tutorials and Creative Ideas on my blog, In My Own Style.com Republishing this article in full or in part is a violation of Copyright law @2009-2014, all rights reserved


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