How-To: Embellishing a Pillow Sham for less than $5

I had a real problem picking a paint color in our master bedroom at our old house. Or should I say it was a "learning experience".... When we bought the house, the walls were all white in the room. So we wanted a sunny yellow to do a beachy theme. We learned yellows are hard to pick because they quickly move from pale to electric. So a year later we went to a cool blue. We learned that blues needs some gray in them so they don't scream little boy's room. So when we were ready to paint again I spent a lot of time thinking about it and gathered inspiration pictures (we shamelessly copied one of them).

After painting, I was finally happy with the color so I was on the hunt for the perfect duvet. It needed to be all white with just a bit of black trim. I looked everywhere but could not find exactly what I was looking for except at Crate and Barrel. I did not want to spend that much money so I kept looking. But after a couple of months and still no duvet I broke down and ordered it from Crate and Barrel.

Side of Duvet....sorry did not take time to iron before snapping pic

The duvet arrived and I loved it....but then we needed pillow shams to match. I was not going to pay for matching ones so we improvised. I went to Wal-Mart and found $3 white pillow shams. I got out the sewing machine and black thread, set it on a zigzag stitch with the shortest length possible and followed the white stitching of the pillow sham. 10 minutes and done!

The finished product- less than 5 bucks

Close-up of the stitching...not perfect but for the price oh well


The whole thing put together in the master at the old house

..........And in the new