Cushions To Brighten Up The Beige

But it can be hard to put your stamp on a place when you can’t paint the walls. Why are rented houses always Magnolia? Why can’t they be white?!

One way to make it yours is with your furnishings. Now with our sofa’s we definitely opted for comfort over style, they’re not ugly, but when we bought them I wasn’t asking myself “is it Instagram worthy?” but “does it pass the wiggle test?”.

I made some cushion covers not long after the sofa’s arrived, but they still didn’t do much to brighten the place up. I’d seen the Cotton Candy collection of fabric from Dashwood Studios and loved the bright colours and geometric prints. I found this fab fat quarter bundle from Poppies and Polka Dots that included a couple of Dashwood’s Twist fabrics. Perfect!

The next decision to make… how to use all those fabrics to make my cushions. After way too much time on Pinterest I decided to do two simple envelope cushions and try my hand at piping. And then with the other two I went for a patchwork look. I found a tutorial that used white cotton to break up all the colour a bit, and create a sort of grid. You can find the tutorial HERE if you like it.

I’m so happy with the way they turned out! The piping looks great, and was surprisingly easy to do. I used ready made bias binding to cover the cord, but you can make your own if you’re really keen. If you want to try piping on a cushion, I highly recommend this YouTube tutorial I found, so simple!

Making a patchwork cushion meant I just HAD to get a cutting mat and rotary cutter, Yay new tools to play with! I want to use them for everything now, cutting fabric with a rotary cutter is so satisfying!