A beautiful bedroom shouldn't be hard

It all started with an idea in 2022, while I was travelling in North Queensland. I've always had an obsession with cushions and fabrics. While browsing a homewares store, I came across a beautiful handmade cushion that I absolutely loved, but I didn't have room in my suitcase to bring it home. I kept thinking about that cushion throughout my travels, chatting to my partner about it, until I thought, why don't I try to make my own?

When I got home, on my first day back, I bought a sewing machine. I watched countless YouTube videos to teach myself how to sew. I practised over and over, learning how to sew in the perfect zip, how to work with all different kinds of fabrics, and how to get that professional finish. After posting photos of my cushions on Instagram, I finally felt confident enough to start selling them online. I was blown away by the support and feedback from my customers, which inspired me to keep making more.

One day, a friend messaged me wanting to buy some of my decorator cushions for her king-size bed. She wanted to know how many European pillows she needed to make up her bed, two or three. That was the moment it hit me. On a king-size bed, two European pillows feel too few, and three is too many. With three European pillows, two to four sleeping pillows and two or three decorator cushions, that's a lot of effort to make your bed. Who truly has the time to arrange that many pillows and cushions every day? What if I could create one large feature cushion to replace those three European cushions, streamlining your whole bed while keeping that statement look? That's how the Bedhead Cushion was born.

Right away, I made one large pillowcase to fit three European pillows and test my theory. The inserts didn't look right inside it, but one big continuous pillowcase proved the idea and looked way less cluttered. So I realised I needed one really big cushion insert to fill it. I researched absolutely everywhere, and a cushion insert this big just didn't exist. So I decided to make my own. I made countless iterations and trialled all the different fillings to get it just right. It needed to be soft enough to sink into, but structured enough to lean back against to watch TV or read a book.

I knew I didn't want to use feathers, because I wanted this cushion to stay odourless and hypoallergenic, especially for asthma and allergy sufferers like me. (Plus, feathers are pokey and smelly, and nobody wants that!) I hand-shredded fibre fill and hand-stuffed these large cushions to get them just right. I made two cover styles in a range of colours using linen and bouclé, then thought I'd see if they would sell. Before I knew it, I was hand-sewing and hand-stuffing orders every week. I handmade the first hundred or so orders, until I became heavily pregnant and physically couldn't make them anymore. I had to pause my online store, but the order requests kept coming. It made me realise my small handmade hobby was becoming bigger than I could handle on my own.

For years, I'd been talking about a bigger dream, one where Arlem became about more than my Bedhead Cushions, about the look of your whole bed and bedroom. I want to streamline the way you make your bed and help you get that Instagram look without all the effort. I had a vision for quilt covers and pillowcases to match the Bedhead Cushions, so your whole bed set looks cohesive. To get there, I realised it was time to expand and build a team of trusted manufacturers, so I could offer all of this to you.

I spent the next six to eight months coming up with new designs and a whole new range, working with suppliers and producing samples. After handmaking my Bedhead Cushions for so long, I had to be sure the quality and the feel were exactly the same as my handmade standard. That was non-negotiable. It took countless iterations, going back and forth on the design and materials, to get it right.

Which brings us to today. I now have a whole range of brand new Bedhead Cushion designs, each with matching quilt covers and pillowcases you can mix and match. I can finally offer something to suit every style and personality, so you can truly make your bedroom yours, without needing to arrange a pile of pillows just right every morning.

Whether you've been here from the very start of my journey or you've only just found us, I'm so happy you found Arlem.