Peonies Make Me Happy

I love peonies so much!  My mother has always had quite a few peony bushes and I remember cutting a few flowers in the spring to take to my teacher at the end of the school year.



Want to see more incredible peony pictures?  Check them out over at Oh Happy Day.

Hope you're having a great Monday-Tuesday!  I'll be back later this week to show you what we did this weekend.  (Hint: It involved painting and shopping!)

|All images above taken by Jordan Ferney|

Corkboard: From Drab to Fab

So by now you know that I'm pulling more color into my house color scheme.  I did this simple project over the weekend that made a huge difference in my house!  I had a regular cork board...



and I knew there was something I could do to spruce it up!

So I added some baseboard, paint, fabric flowers, a little ribbon and voila:



Bet you didn't even recognize it!

How do you make your own?



1. Use some acrylic paint and paint the cork board surface.  I used the Linen color of FolkArt paint.  It took about 1 ½ bottles to cover the surface.



2. Buy, measure, and cut baseboard at 45 degree angles to make a nice frame.  Most custom frames will cost you hundreds of dollars...mine cost $9!  Paint it the color you'd like.  Adhere the frame to the cork frame.  (I did this new frame because the teeny tiny cork board frame was just out of scale to me and I wanted something a little more beefy!  This is the before and after paint pictures.  Please excuse the cat, this picture was the one with the least amount of cat...)



3. Cut out various sized circles out of satin fabric and melt the edges over a candle.  (Don't forget to wear your sunglasses, otherwise you'll damage your eyes staring at an open flame for that long.)  Layer a few different sized circles and hand stitch together, adding some beads as you go.  Make leaves with green ribbon.



4. Adhere ribbon to cork board, right inside the frame.  Layout and adhere your poppy flowers.  Hang up!



After I hung it up it looked so good I didn't want to clutter it with all my normal bulletin board stuff so I made a little shopping list that coordinated with it instead!

Want your own shopping list?  You can download it here. 

There are 2 per page so I printed about 5 (so I'd have 10 pages) then trimmed them on the gray lines,



added some patterned paper to the chipboard back which is slightly larger than the list,



punched holes near the top and held it together with brads,



and put that on my board!  If you don't have chipboard, try an old cereal box instead!  Only thing I have left to do is customize some push pins, which I'll show you how to do soon!

Have a great Monday everyone!

Fresh Flowers on the inside

{Flowers are Peony & Iris}

I love fresh flowers and they are an easy way to brighten up any space in the home.  I put these flowers on my desk and I honestly think they are making me work harder today.  And they smell phenomenal.

A huge thanks to my mother and her beautiful flower garden!

What are your favorite flowers to pick and bring indoors?