New Pillows, New Color

Let me just say that I love Home Depot.

It is by far my home improvement store of choice, and even though the Big Blue Store is closer to our house, I will drive further just for some Big Orange love.

I went in today because I'm out of white spray paint and I'm only halfway through transforming my mirror and owl (see previous post - Weekend Thrifting).  I already finished checking out and I saw clearance indoor / outdoor pillows on my way out.

I immediately loved the sky blue ones, because this cheery blue is the perfect shade and will go with a lot of other colors -bright yellow, kelley green, orange or coral.  They had coordinating coral ones that tied in the blue in their patterns, but they only had one left of the one I wanted.  I bought it anyway.  Because you know what? They were $5 a pop.  At that price, I should have bought all of them.

I started with just the 3 from Home Depot, but it looked a little sparse, and I needed a solid color to break up the patterns.

I've been really wanting to tie in grass green with the new house decor and loved the idea of having these blue and white pillows as an accent.  So I stopped by Big Lots on the way home and picked up two grass green pillows for $10 apiece.

I started with them all lined up in a row, with the colors / patterns working their way toward the middle.  But it ended up looking like a pillow parade, or like we were living in a pillow showroom.  Good for a furniture store, but not for my life.

So then I tried them this way.

And I decided that's how they're going to stay.

When using accessories, odd numbers always work best in groupings.  Here, I have an odd number of total pillows (5) and an odd number of colors / patterns (3).  Plus, I've broken up the two different patterns with a solid in between them, so you don't have pattern on pattern.

Not that there's anything wrong with pattern on pattern.  The best way to mix patterns is to have one be a smaller scale than the other.  In this case, the blue and white pattern is on a much smaller scale than the single coral pillow's pattern, which is why mixing them works.  Always go bigger or smaller.

Also, I know it's hard to tell in this photo, but there is actually a small amount of the light blue color in the coral pillow.

You can see here that the patterns are different scales, yet go together well.

I'm happy with my pillow purchases today, and at just $35 total for all five of them, I think it was a great buy!  I'll be able to use them again at the new house, either out on the deck, in the living room, or maybe they'll just stay in the bedroom!