Etsy - place to buy hand made.

Etsy.com is a place to buy and sell hand made. It opened its "doors" in 2005 and became very popular all around the world very fast. Artists, photographers, crafters of all kind, designers are exhibiting and selling their unique items through Etsy.

Visit Etsy yourself and see beautiful work of creative people.

selling online

New Decorative Pillow in "Black & White" Collection by LenkArt

Decorative Pillow Cover "Absolute" is a new addition in "Black and White" Collection offered by www.LenkArt.com.

This accent pillow cover with sophisticated sheen of the white silk fabric and the rich black stripes will add contemporary element to your home decor.

“Black and White” Collection features decorative pillows which combine the traditional luxury of natural Silk and contemporary clean line design.

Decorative pillows

Book " Simple Cushions" by Katrin Cargill

This book is full of interesting ideas and step-by-step projects for over 100 cushions of all shapes and sizes.
Includes 20 illustrated instructions to make your own cushions and decorative pillows.
For those, who don't know how to sew, but want to add a few cushions to their home decor , book will give various ideas and inspiration.
Katrin Cargill is also an author of The Soft Furnishing Book, The soft Furnishing Workbook and Pure Country.

Decorative pillows

Try-a-Window-Treatment

I found this good tool to plan your decorating projects and chose the colours you like for your walls, window treatments, rods and furniture:

Color This!

"Now you can try your hand at designer decorating. Our Color This! suite lets you choose paint colors for your interior walls and exterior siding, along with fabric, window treatments, flooring, roof color, trim, and more. Simply choose and apply the colors and materials, then save your rooms to view later, print on a color printer, or e-mail to a friend. Design, plan, or just have fun!" http://www.bhg.com

window treatments

Dress Your Naked Windows!

Window treatments add visual interest to any windows and rooms. Naked windows are looking empty and unfinished.

You don't need to cover entire window to achive finished look. Top treatments, such as valances, dress the windows and give them softer, more decorative look.


Swags and jabots showed below added warmth to the living room. The treatment made of natural silk and lined.

Swags and jabots are complicated window treatments and require professional approach.

window treatments

Stylish Way to Dress Your Naked Windows

Window treatments styles and forms change in popularity from time to time. The advantage of Roman shades is that they never seem to go out of style with their clean, sophisticated lines.

Roman shades are one of the most stylish and very efficient and practical way to add a touch of elegance to all of your windows.

Roman shades can be used as a standalone window treatment fitted outside the window or fitted inside the window recess and combined with curtains and top treatments for a layered look.

The range of fabrics and colors available in a market will allow customizing the look to any desired style you might have. Roman shades are a simple and practical window treatment to accent a room or to provide privacy and protection from bright sun.

window treatments
home decor

Book: Vintage Fabric Style

I found this book and decided to add it to my large collection of books about sewing and inteior decor.
Authors are Lucinda Ganderton and Rose Hummick.

Book is full of stylish ideas and projects for your home, using quilts and flea market finds . Book contain many pictures of decorative pillows made of vintage fabrics, bed covers, a padded jewelry box and table linens.
I found a website on a back of the book: www.rylandpeters.com

inrerior decor

Door knobs, handles, fingerplates, door pulls and pretty well everything you could imagine putting on a door.

One thing many people forget to think about in their houses are the doors, which is strange really because doors are the first and last thing that people will see.
I found some very elegant door furniture at a British company called Drummonds. They make door knobs, handles, fingerplates, door pulls and pretty well everything you could imagine putting on a door.

All their door hardware is made of solid brass by an ancient manufacturing method called the 'lost wax process' but it can be plated with chrome or nickel for a more modern effect.

Shown below are two of Drummonds door knobs, one in chrome,


and one elaborate copy of an original door knob from an old English country house that comes with a matching escutcheon.


door knobs

Hand Made Pledge

It is very interesting to browse through the web. So many talented people and people with passion to do hand made items.
hand made

How Many Is Too Many?

How many decorative pillows do you have on your sofa?
One, three, five or seven? How many would be too many?
I love pillows and I have five of them on my sectional and I want to add more.

I am going to add 2 or 3 more in the near future. Stay tuned.

decor
decorative pillows

Art & Decoration magazine

I found this Art & Decoration magazine in Costco store on Quebec side. The magazine is printed in France!

I have heard before that Europeans are using more decorative pillows, than people do here in North America. But after checking the magazine through I see it for myself now. This is true, they use decorative pillows more often, and they use pillow styles different from America as well.

I love decorative pillows and I have a lot on my bed, and I plan to add new ones to my sectional sofa in living room.

decorative pillows

Choosing the right size for your new decorative pillows.

How would you decide what size of a decorative pillow is right for your chair? Not too big, not too small, but just the one, which fits perfectly?

First decide what shape you want. Personally myself I would exclude the round one to be used in a chair. It would be suitable for a sofa, but not for a chair. It brings us to basic options of square, triangular or rectangular decorative pillow shape.

Let’s say, you decide to use a square pillow for your chair. How would you decide on a size? Right – you measure the chair first to find out how mush space you have for your decorative pillow. And you need to remember about harmony and proportions. If the chair is small and you want a big pillow for it – it would be out of scale. Same thing with the big chair: if you put a tiny pillow there, it will be lost and also look out of scale. Are you saying that you adore that little pillow and want to use it any way?

Well, you have few options: you can ignore that proportions are wrong and enjoy it anyway. Or you could add another bigger pillow and put this tiny one in front of a bigger pillow. You should remember that visual appearance of stuffed pillow will be smaller, than its measurements. Why? Because the measurements are given for flat pillow cover, but after being stuffed its outer lines get smaller. For example 16” x 16” pillow will take about 14” of a chair space. And you need to leave some space on both sides of a pillow, so it does not look squeezed into the chair.

How to choose between square and rectangular shape? Consider the height of a chair back. For taller chairs I would use square ones, for shorter chairs I would prefer the rectangular one.

But, hey, aren’t the rules made to be broken?

interior decor

Bedroom Makeover - Part Two.

I found this chair in the garbage 9 years ago. I liked it then, and I like it now. But fabric was very old and dated , so I decided to reupholster it myself. Fabric choice wasn't difficult, I already had draperies and decorative pillows from same fabric.

It took me a while to take all the staples out. I used old fabric parts as my template to cut new fabric.

It was my first experience with the upholstery, but I think I have achieved what I wanted.
It may be not perfect, but it is my home and my chair and I love it the way it is.

I called this "Horse Pillow". I know, it does not exist in the nature - the horse with leopard skin pattern, but the fringe on this decorative pillow reminds me of a horse mane.

Bedroom decor

Wild and Beautiful. Bedroom makeower - part one.

Animal prints - some people love it, others hate. We are all different, thank god! Otherwise we would all end up having same colours, fabrics and furniture in the same houses. Would not that be a nightmare!

Let's go back to animal prints.

Those beautiful full operational draperies are made of leopard print faux fur fabric. The little valance covers and hides inexpensive I-Beam rod. It has small drop size for a reason. There is only 6" above the patio door leading to a balcony, and the owners are relatively toll.


The chair and the ottoman were reupholstered with the same fabric to keep the animal print theme. The ottoman provides a sitting place in the morning and a storage surface for the bed cover and decorative pillows over night.


Colours on the bed cover and on pillows are in harmony with colours on the draperies. For sewing enthusiasts it will be easy to make draperies and decorative pillows. Even upholstery probably won't be a problem.

If you are not sure about your skills, I would recommend to hire a professional to do the job.

Bedroom decor

Is Black and White a New Trend in Home Décor?

It seems everyone is offering black-and-white decorative accessories nowadays.

Was not black-and-white around before? May be I wasn’t looking for white and black items and just didn’t noticed them?
Lately I was going through my collection of Burda Magazines I’ve collected over the years and suddenly found these beautiful dresses made in black and white. Magazine I found the dresses in is November 2003 issue of Burda. That means I have had it since 2003, but probably was not paying attention all that time.

In 2005-2006 I’ve designed a collection of decorative pillows in Black and White silk. Look at the pictures of the 2003 dresses and my 2007 pillows.

Do you see the similarity?

I do not have the pillow similar to the next dress, but may be I should make one?

I am wondering, how strong the influence of fashion industry is on interior décor? I have feeling that it takes about 2-4 years for colours, fabric patterns and textures from fashion industry to be adopted in Home Décor field.

Below are black and white decorative accessories that I have found in various local stores in Ottawa, ON, Canada.

Ikea store (right):

Loblaws (right):

Zellers (right):

LenkArt.com offers a whole collection of Black and White Decorative pillows for those who love clean lines of contemporary décor style.

interior decor