Gouache is a great medium… much different than watercolours and I prefer it over acrylics. I encourage you to give it a shot Flo! Happy, No, I don’t own this. It’s something that I stumbled across and saved.Artist is Jan Waldron.

Started a new round of jewellery today as I’m right down to zero on my stock at this point.

Lia you’ve been quite busy today, and I love your pinwheels that your grandkids put out there. Sometimes when they spin, they deter things that we don’t want around! You made a lot of jewelry there. And that’s a good sign that you needed to make more because I know that means they’re selling. May pay for some of them groceries lol the black cat in the window sleeping is adorable. Looks as if the kitty may have had someone with tea and a good book there as well 💗 I don’t know a lot about many of the painting mediums, but the colors in that are vibrant and I love that image. Thank you for sharing that.

Pinwheels are in hopes of deer deterring… ha! Fat chance. Moving winter rug out of living room today. Toying with, once again, working more blue into pillows for a room where the sofa doesn’t like blue. Why? The rug, which I love, has blue in it. Mostly.

I switched everything up with the help of my vintage store friend who came over and put away the winter rug for me and I’ve determined that I do not in fact need new pillow covers…although I have been tempted

These are the final contenders… I’m not sure how they would work with the couch however. Comments?

Maybe do as Alice did and buy a solid-color cover for your couch. They seem to be pretty inexpensive online. Navy blue, perhaps? Then three out of the four William Morris pillow covers would work great on the couch mixed in with a couple of the lighter pillows you already have and you'd feel like you had a whole new living room for not a lot of cost.

That’s an interesting idea Jay… But I think it would be very difficult to find one to fit this couch. It’s not a standard size and in addition the pillows on the back are not removable. It would be miraculous if I could find something that would fit it. And at some point I am going to have to deal with it because the seat cushions are getting worn after only a decade or so. Too bad.

What I might do is get a navy blue throw for the couch that kind of makes the colour a little bit less prominent. You can’t see it here but the green in the rug actually goes pretty well with the colour of the couch.

Older son daughter-in-law and grandkids came out to visit today; they took bike ride first on the rails to trails hiking trail then we met up for ice cream cones. Visited here for a few hours; they picked the blueberries which are ripening exponentially on the bushes now…. played in the guest room which doubles as their special place space. It’s working out very well for multi purpose. It means I don’t have to drive in town tomorrow which is great. I get a break this weekend from doing that drive.

I also think it might be a good idea to look for a slipcover to give the room a whole new look. I would try a white one. Then you will have a neutral background for pillows.

Here’s an example: It’s reasonably priced and is available in multiple sizes.

The above is from Amazon. This one from Pottery Barn is

pricier:

Lia out of the four you posted together my vote would be the top right. Do you keep that green chair through the season?

Yeah, these covers are pretty flimsy. I mean they’re stretchy so you can stretch and tuck like I do. But they’re not the best, of course at the cost I can replace them when I need to. Lia a throw mixed in would be nice and tie things together as well. Besides, you’re going to probably want a throw when winter comes, that would be nice. I’m sure you have blankets and such but a new one would be pretty and fun to have.

Hm. I do recall at some point in the past with Lola that we discovered some really nice couch covers. I will look into that. i’m quite sure the stretchy ones would not work on this piece of furniture and look like anything that would be acceptable to me, but the draped ones might work. I wish I could remember where we found the attractive ones. I’m still meditating on the pillows and the throw concept. Of course it would’ve been simpler if I had not changed out the rug! And whatever I do, I have to keep in mind that I do change the rugs. As far as the green rocking chair goes, no that comes and goes as well. I moved it into the room for extra seating when my sister was here. It goes away in the winter time for sure back into the studio room.

Yes I think it was Lola that had the really nice couch covers!

She used the draped one on her chair, but her couch had the fitted nice look to it in the cover she found.

Lola posted on Dsimber’s thread on August 9th :) maybe you can catch her attention over there and ask her about those?

I am thinking it might have been Etsy, but agree with Alice, I think Lola is following along on dsimber's.

Good morning! I can let Lola know you need help, Lia. Re: her sofa, I’m quite sure she bought fabric and had her rather unique idea custom-made. I think she wanted more of a daybed look with cushions/added pillows in the same gray elephant fabric. Does that ring a bell?

Dsimber, you nailed it! Thank you very much. I remember it now it was the elephant fabric solution. We looked at a number of different covers at that time and that was the final outcome.

In the meantime I have vacuumed and fluffed the attached back pillows on my sofa. I’m very fond of this fabric that I chose after much deliberation and I’m not in a hurry to cover it up. I lived with a covered IKEA sofa for years and don’t really want to backtrack. I flipped over the seat cushions and I’m using one of the extra cushion covers to begin protecting the place where I sit all the time. It blends right in so it’s not really very noticeable. In the long range however I am very handy with a sewing machine and fabric I would custom make covers for this if it comes to that. It was almost impossible to get this sofa in the house the clearance was literally a quarter of an inch! It’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

I began thinking that a dark blue on the sofa as an accent would pull the eye around the room… remembered I have a very old pillow cover that I made for my son when he was in university… (Notice how I never give anything away? 🤣) I dug it out to see if the concept works and basically it does. This will give me an excuse to go to my favourite fabric store and see what I can find in navy fabrics with the idea of making a small accent cushion… as I can see the idea works in concept. No throw…added Afghan that I made years ago… multiple colours includes the dark blue…So there is a solution for the moment 😬 spending zero dollars. 😉 I realize the level of pattern in this room is not what would please everybody. How I miss you, Lola🥰.

I sent email to Lola.

Lia your space is charming, and the cushions look fluffed, good job! I added up what I spent roughly on the new living room makeover. It wasn’t quite all that bad. I guess the rug and the curtains and the paint were the bulk of the purchase. I did find some pillow covers and those came in. I’m taking out the stuffing from the old pillows and adding that in there. They are in a mob Brown, which is a color I have come to like. They are solid velvet in case I wanted to go with a pattern on something else.

When I get them stuffed, I’ll show them on my thread 😊

Alice, I am also going to up cycle some bed pillows. Creating some new pillows with the stuffing. I’ll be interested to see the colour you mentioned… I would like to be able to use brown in this space and so far it has been unsuccessful for the most part.

…

I had a great time yesterday with the visit; one of the notable moments was the grandchildren opening a “restaurant“ in their “playroom” (aka the guestroom) upstairs. They made various varieties of food, depending on what the customers wanted… out of some coloured air, dried clay that I had bought quite a while ago, which,at the time, was not a hit. They got it down off the shelf, and on their own devised the food game… the food orders included bacon wrapped scallops, corn on the cob, sausages, strawberries, (dipped in chocolate)… And pasta with meatballs. All rendered in air dried clay. I dug out the miniature China plates that I have for the gnomes and everybody had a very good time. 🤣🥂🎉The restaurant music was played on the little electronic keyboard that my own kids used to use. There’s a basket of stuffed animals there and my older son noticed the stuffed animals he had as a child, in the basket. We got them out of the basket and reminisced about the characters… which were in the category of the velveteen bunny at that point. Well loved…it was a meaningful nostalgic moment. We hold these in our hearts, as parents. They don’t come around that frequently.

So true Lia 💗 sounds like they had a great time and setting up that upstairs guestroom was perfect for them. I would’ve been a hungry and pleased customer to have found their restaurant. My two grandsons just got back home from a stay with my son-in-law‘s parents. Of course they did not want to leave. They live by the lake and go fishing and boating and get pulled behind the boat on various floaty things. We are still in the triple digits here and I’m staying indoors lol. I looked for some good stuffing here, but apparently I’ve used it on other pillows. I’ll be donating the blue ones that have seen their day next time I have a drop off. I saw on the Walmart site that they had adequate pillow inserts for 18 inch and I may get over there tomorrow and grab those. The color is like a peachy brown, very pretty and I think we’ll go in here in the new living room. The new living room lol, it feels like it! Other than that, I’ve been decluttering from my projects at hand. Do you know I still almost have half of that oil canvas of the Paris Street left over 👀 it’s mostly building street and pedestrians. I imagine I’ll find something to do with that as well.

Have you tried rust colored pillows, Lia? I see rust in the sofa and the rug. That might tie it all together.

Amanda, I do often use rust coloured pillows a little later on in the fall. They work well. So good eye! It’s beginning to feel like fall a little bit here but we’re not quite there yet. When we get there, I’ll put the rust pillows out and you will see how well your idea works. I only just switched the rugs and as my son pointed out we’re already halfway through summer. I like this rug so much but unfortunately, it’s the only good place in the house for it. So then I go through redecorating…

Meanwhile, yesterday I was reminded of events in my life 30 years ago. I can’t believe I’m old enough to say that… And went up into the studio and dug out my journals from that time (which was the years of my divorce). I have to do something with these journals and there’s a box of them. 😑I know from experience burning things is a lot harder than you might think… but it looks like that’s the best option. I’ve been meaning to buy a fire pit. Maybe this is the time. Why is it that ageing involves unravelling your life… 😵‍💫It reminds me of the story in Odysseus of the wife who wove on her loom and then every night unravelled it. Has anybody seen that movie BTW?

This poem was displayed at a local memorial service… Very poignant. The events 30 years ago tie into this; the people that I was involved with, three of them have died. Now I’m left with my journals of that time. It seems like it all happened to a completely different person. I look at that writing now, and I can’t relate to it at all as something that I wrote. Unlike my art of that era …I understand that perfectly. And I have no problems, leaving it behind. The moral of the story is, don’t write it out, paint it out.

Could you just take the journals to be shredded?

KC I actually looked into that. I’d be happy to pay for it but unfortunately they don’t do hardcover or spiral or plastic when it comes to booklets. Which pretty much covers everything you might want to shred in a booklet doesn’t it? I also thought about binding them together and tossing them in the old well at the top of the hill which will probably never be excavated again. Equivalent to burying them in the ground. I’m not sure I want to leave that piece of my life behind me on this property however in whatever form it might end up in. It can take decades for things like that to disintegrate. I also researched that.

I could just put them in the garbage. There’s nothing really confidential in there in the sense of identity theft. It just feels wrong somehow.

Lia, when we sold our patio home in Missouri to my sister in 2019, I threw out 40 large photo albums. Photos from my teens, single life, vacations, decades worth of life. But in the trash they went! When we cleaned out my parents home in 2012, no one wanted dad’s photo albums. Just like we had no one to pass on the furniture!

At least once a year I go through our files to declutter. They have shred days here about every quarter or semi-annually. So check to see if shred days are coming up in your area. Unless a neighbor has a fire pit.

Still thinking about your living room….have you ever considered leather (faux) sofa pillows? You could get them in a nice cognac color. I have them. They are sturdy but also attractive.

Wouldn't the hardcover/plastic be a mess to burn in a firepit?

When I was a teacher destroying records that were allowed to be destroyed I’d rip off the parts that couldn’t be shredded, threw those away and shredded the paper. It created very sore hands each spring when I’d do it.

Actually I burned an extensive number of journals a couple of years ago, as a favour to a deceased friend. Her partner and she had moved to Ottawa and the friend left all of her journals with me. The friend died and as a favour to the Partner I burned them… which is how I know just how much work it is to burn journals. I borrowed a burn site from friends across the inlet…who have a large sacred circle where they do rituals and gatherings. I thought it was appropriate because the journals were notes from Buddhist studies and pilgrimage travels that my friend had done. The whole project took hours.

…

Yes I would have to remove the plastic covers. Shredders don’t take the bindings either. The cardboard covers do burn but the problem with journals is the tightly packed pages. You have to burn them one at a time. Not an impossible task. I brought the box down into the house so I can figure out what I’m doing here. It’s possible that I may be able to rip out the pages which would certainly simplify burning them. it’s less than the number of journals that I did for my friend.

Liasch❤️ so sorry I am MIA but in Escape Mode as you know. So, I love your house and I love your couch but this is difficult to wrap my brain around. I have thoughts but none cohesive except I think you should lean into your beautiful wall colors and that Art I see in pic. My favorite. I think the white pillows do nothing to enhance the beauty of sofa fabric. Thinking sage green and maybe burgundy. Amazon has a zillion and very cheap but it is overwhelming. If I can get my act together, I will find pics of what I have. I am struggling with same problem in my living room after changing out the rug. . Mistake I think. You might want to consider cover for bottom only. There are lots on Wayfare and probabably Amazon. I lik3 the kind of sheepskin ones. Sorry I have no pics. maybe I can get back to you later

Regarding the ”unweaving of life” I engage in that daily. Depressing but I guess necessary. havent seen the Odyssey. There is Super Max theater at hotel nearby. Tickets are $50. Here is pic of my Elephant couch

This before new coffee table

Here are two Amazon pillows i like but not sure they will solve my problem pretty though

Amandas idea of rust good too. There is a rosie rust out there thats really pretty

I just looked on Amazon couch covers for pets lots of heavy fluffy covers for bottom cushions check it out cant take pics on Amazon. cheap, multiple colors and sizes

Thanks, For dropping in Lola. We miss you!

In Maine, we still have a power plant fueled by garbage, but you can literally contract directly with them for the burning.

I miss you and everyone too. I am just so easily overwhelmed these days and not stable emotionally. dsimber told me you needed my help so I assumed you wanted my opinion. You and I are Bojo/eclectic sisters but you are always more adventuresome than I am. I feel that my thoughts arent helpful to you. Have my comments offended?

Lola, you have been such a valued friend here. I'm sorry to hear that you're struggling a bit emotionally but just know that we think of you and your insights with great positivity. Please re-read this when you have doubts. It's true. Take care... 🦋