Christmas House Tour 2015 Christmas in The Bedroom

Welcome to my Christmas house tour 2015: Christmas in the Bedroom. Today I want to show you our bedroom.  It all started when I went to Magpie’s Vintage Treasures, a little shop in Matthews, near where I live, that only opens for a weekend, seasonally.  This cute little toile bear jumped into my arms as I was browsing in the store.

 She insisted that I decorate our bedroom for Christmas, and let her be the star.  So…

 Here she is making herself quite comfortable on our bed.  I switched the blue and white quilt for this all white bedspread, and added a couple of red and white stripe pillowcases.

 Then I folded one of the red and white quilts I made at the foot of the bed.

Some greens from our yard in white ironstone, classic and simple.  It looks so good with the brass lamp behind it.  

 Got a pair of brass lamps for $2 each recently and Hobby Lobby had lampshades 50% off the same day, so I the lamps only cost me $17 each!

 Some more greenery: cedar, nandina berries and holly on the other side of the bed with something I printed and framed last year.  There were hardly any berries on our holly this year.  Not sure why.

 Last year my feather tree had a button garland and these little cloth blue and white hearts.  At the insistence of my little bear, red balls and a red bead garland were added.

A vintage bunny and some of the Christmas hearts are nestled under the tree.

Thanks little bear.  I like how it turned out!  I’m thinking about painting the walls, dark blue.  What do you think?  Actually you may not be able to respond because yesterday the comments weren’t working and I couldn’t figure out how to fix them.  If you’ve ever had that problem I’d love you to email me and tell me how to fix it!!

Come back in a few days and I’ll show you some more of my Christmas house tour.

Rhondi x0

What to Do With Old Buttons: Make Button Heart

Here  in North Carolina people panic when there is a forecast of snow.  Yesterday when it started to snow I decided just to stay inside like a native Southerner.  I made some soup and some brownies and got some extra firewood ready to “ride out the storm” and I decided to do a little project.

Valentines Day is approaching.  I don’t decorate for Valentines day, but I love hearts, so this is sort of a Valentine’s Day post.

  I have always loved the shape of a heart.  I also like buttons and always buy some if I find them at garage sales.  I have lots of button ideas on my Pinterest pages and this idea for the button heart came from there.

 I had a photo in this lovely frame.  So I removed the glass and covered the cardboard back with some  pinstripe fabric that came from an old sheet.  I just taped it on the back.  Then I lightly painted the frame with Annie Sloan pure white, leaving some of the original color to show through

 I drew the shape of a heart on a piece of white paper and then hot glued the buttons on it.  When I finished I glued the heart to the pinstripe back.  There are so many online instructions for this  that I’m not going to give you a step by step tutorial.  You can google it 

    Here is the finished button heart.  At first I was going to put it on the mantle in our living room.  It looked good there.

            But as I usually do when I have something new, I walked around the house trying it in different places.

I decided I liked it best on the desk beside my bed, next to the little cherub which was already there.  As I am writing this, I just realized that without even thinking I just made a Valentines Day vignette: hearts and cherubs!

    I am always on the lookout for heart shape stones and I put the few I have in a dish in front of the heart.

                     Here is a close up.  if you ever see a heart shaped stone and don’t want it, send it to me 

My daughter and I have done several button initials as gifts.   They are so easy once you get the hang of it and are great for personalized  baby shower gifts, or a gift for the bride.  She did for me one Christmas and I have it hanging on my gallery wall in the TV room.

 Speaking of the TV rom, do you remember the button heart garland I showed you that was on the winter mantle in our TV room?   Now  that I had my  little button heart in the bedroom, I decided to bring it in there.

 I randomly draped it over the plates on the wall. I think every room in our house has plates on the wall   Maybe it looks a little corny but I like it for now.  It adds some whimsy to the room.

Because it’s white, my button heart isn’t just for Valentines Day.  It can stay around all year.  And we all need LOVE all year long, not just at Valentines Day.

**As I have been writing this post, it has started to snow again and they say so we are in for a bad storm again.  Good thing I’ve got some bread ready to put in the oven and some homemade soup for lunch.

Rhondi xo

Joining the parties at

Anything Blue Friday

Wow Us Wednesdays,

What’s It Wednesday,

Be Inspired Wednesday,

Work It Wednesday

Show and Tell Friday

Sweet Dreams

It's time for a change in the bedroom. This is how our bed looks in the summer, a lightweight white spread on it and white pillow shams and wicker lamp ( all yard sale finds, the pillow shams even have our initial "M" on them!)

Then in the fall I moved the bed to the other wall and took off the tall posts, which makes our small bedroom look bigger.  I added one of my blue and white quilts on top and sewed up a few pillows.

Now for Christmas and probably the whole winter season, the posts are back up.  I switched the side tables which makes the room seem even a little bit larger.  I've added some little white lights and green foliage on the canopy and brought in my red and white quilt from the guest room. 

And I made some side drapes from leftover fabric which really softens the look of the windows.  The fabric is pale blue and white stripes but it's hard to tell from the photo.  In case you're wondering I made the quilts.


 

When the night gets dark it is so cosy ....sweet dreams.....

Do you decorate your bedroom for Christmas?

Rhondi xo

A New Quilt

Another project finished. I just finished making this quilt . My plan was to use it on our bed at Christmas and I still may, but in the meantime I’ve put it on the bed in the guest room. I already had a blue and white stripe Ralph Lauren bed skirt I’d picked a up at a yard sale a couple of years ago

The only other thing needed was a few pillows, so I went to my stash and found this great cherry fabric, dotted fabric and this other one that looks like hand stitching. A few more pillows are still needed so I plan to sew a couple more. You can’t have too many pillows on a bed!

The bedroom walls are a boring beige which was on the walls when we moved in 5 years ago. Now that I’ve got the bed looking good it’s time to paint the walls. I’m thinking yellow. Any suggestions? Is wallpaper back in style yet? I love patterned wallpaper. I remember there used to be great discount wallpaper stores back in the day.

Have a happy Labor Day weekend!

Rhondi xo

Thanks Ralph

I've always liked Ralph Lauren's style in home furnishings and clothing. But long before Ralph began to style things for the home, I saw a picture in a magazine of a blue and white bedroom by a well know decorator at the time, named Howard Kaplan. It was a huge room with a big stone fireplace and old beams on the ceiling. It was all in blue and white and I fell in love with it. I've never tried to copy the picture,but over the years it's been my inspiration for our bedroom several times. I've tried other colors but always come back to my favorite blue and white.

The picture above is how the bed looks when I add the quilt I made.

This weekend Belks had a sale and I got this blue Ralph Lauren sheet which was regularly $270 (what a ridiculous amount of money to pay for sheets!) for $68 plus tax! The sheets are SO soft. and they really fit in well with the old white bedspread I got for $2 at a yard sale and the bedskirt made with Ralph Lauren fabric which cost me $5 and the beautiful cotton monogram pillow shams which were $1 each. The main initial is "M" too which is the first letter of our last name! Oh and the new queen size matress was free from a friend! So , here is our $77 Ralph Lauren bed!

A few other personal touches. I don't think Ralph would approve of my bunnies from the Goodwill, but who cares!
A pretty little heart
A close up of the monogram
A close up of the cloth on my bedside table.
Sweet dreams!

Rhondi xo