Making the Bed

Good morning! I live in a tiny California Bungalow on the fringes of Hollywood with my mister, our hissy-fit of a kitty and a slightly skewed assortment of sock monkeys. It goes without saying that our real estate within the tiny casa is at a minimum and if you toss in my hoarding tendencies you’re in for a little chaos. We have one closet. One. It can get pretty hairy. Being a crafter, creator and for the most part gleeful gal, I need my cluttered space to be happy. I also need to feel like I have accomplished something every day. Sometimes, the only thing I can tackle is making the bed; which I have raised to my own little art form. It has become my project.



Every month, I cull and curate from my ever-growing mass of vintage linens (thank you etsy!) to create the perfect bed for that month (don’t worry, the linens get washed more than once during that time). It takes planning you know so I only slightly obsess over it. Okay, it doesn’t actually take too much planning but when you announce to your small bubble of the internet world that you have a project you had better make sure to follow through, people are depending on you and your rep is at stake. So sometime during that first week of the month, I topple all those pop happy-flowery-vintagey linens atop my head and put together the best bed I can.



When you make the bed for the sheer dilly of it, you want to think about your mood, the month and the season you are in. Pillowcases are the easiest to make your bed happy. The more pillows you pile atop it, the more cases and prints you can use. You may think using a zillion prints in one go might hurt your eyes, but it doesn’t, not if you let yourself get lost in the game and take your time, shifting things around. It’s a bit like scrapbooking I think. While some may prefer a page to play around with, I prefer my bed. Just think of the linens as paper scraps, frames and sturdy pages.



Once the bed is made up, its time to break out the embellishments. My brother built my headboard for me years and years ago from a discarded door he found in an alleyway. I love the distressed appearance and the colors he used to pull it all together, it works perfectly with old and new. Back when I needed a good background to photograph some items for my etsy shop, I popped in some tiny screws to the headboard, strung up a hot pink ribbon and added a handful of clothespins and found myself with a nifty place for photoshoots. This has become the spot I use for my bed embellishments. Sometimes I add vintage prints or photos and other times it may be a handmade bunting. I love me some handmade bunting but that’s a whole other post.

So there ya go, a wee peek into how my scrappy-scrappy everyday life. Viva la bed making!

To see more pics of my bed project click here. Oh and if you want to play along, join the flickr group!