Peonies

I love the beginnning of summer, the warmer weather, longer days, BBQ's, and best of all, peonies. Of course I love roses, but peonies are definitely my favorite flower. I ended up cutting the majority of the peonies in my garden and decided to put my camera to work and share these beauties with you all, enjoy!

The beautiful Sarah Bernhardt peony

Sarah Bernhardt peonies are by far my favorite peony, they are large, fragrant, and have a double pink flower that blooms early June-July.

This lovely euro sham is from Bella Notte Linens. I love their linens, they are of high quality, and best of all, machine washable!

Okay, let's get back to peonies.

The white peony you see here is the Festiva Maxima, its large double white flower is very fragrant. And when I mean fragrant, it just takes one cut stem to put in a small bathroom and the scent is filled.

With all that pink and white, let's change things up a bit and introduce......

The Karl Rosenfeld peony is slightly fragrant, but that's okay because it's vivid double red flower is just enough to make you smile and say ahhhhh.

I hope you all enjoyed this post on peonies from my garden. These flowers are truly breathtaking and are perfect in my eyes. If only they were repeat flowering like roses I would truly be happy, but I guess we can't have everything.

Take care everyone!

Big Hugs, Melissa

Happy Anniversary!

It's been two years of being married to the most amazing husband. The day I got married was the best day of my life, I would love to re-live that day over and over, it was everything I imagined it to be. Now I know my blog is about decorating, gardening, and beautiful things for the home, but I thought I would make today's post about my special day and share some of what my day was like with you all.

Putting on the dress

I was lucky enough to have my dress custom made by a wonderful and very talented seamstress. She listened to every little thing I wanted without making me feel like I was asking for too much.
I wanted lots and lots of tulle, and a lace bodice with tiny little pearl accents sewn in here and there. This photo is a tiny close up of the bodice.

I wanted it very romantic and feminine, no sparkles whatsoever. She created my vision into a reality and I couldn't of been any happier.

taking a picture with the man who will always be special to me, my father. Now off to....

pictures with my beautiful bridesmaids

Yay! We're married!

Now time to party it up!

I wanted the centerpieces to be filled with peonies, roses, hydrangea, and various greens. The tall centerpieces had crystal garlands draped. I thought the crystals would look so romantic in the evening with the candlelight .

I also wanted there to be lots and lots of candles with pale pink roses, just to add to the romance.

Carey from Stems Flower Design did an amazing job and really listened to what I wanted. She made my vision a reality. I was truly blessed to find such a great team of people that were willing to take the time to create my dream into a reality.

I hope you enjoyed my day and much as I did. All I truly want is to live the happily ever after and grow old with my husband. He truly is my one and only and I couldn't imagine my life without him.
Now I'm off to painting, haha!
Take care everyone! Big Hugs, Melissa

Sneak Peek

Not too sure if any of you know, but I have an addiction for finding furniture pieces on Craigslist. I've had great luck so far finding a number of pieces for great prices. I will admit it takes me a lot of time and patience trying to find these pieces, but when I come across them I am so excited.

Well, I was more than thrilled this past weekend when I this vintage sideboard was listed and was free. Yes, free! I did not hesitate one moment and e-mailed the seller to let him know I was extremely interested and would be there the next day to pick it up.

I am so sorry for the before photos, if you notice on the bottom the cardboard and paint, I was just beginning to paint it, when I realized I needed to take a before shot.

As you can see the wood on the sides is a bit damaged, but I saw that as no problem.

I love the legs on this piece, so French, so pretty.  There were so many cobwebs in this piece, it took about an hour to clean up. (I was so lucky to have my husband right there to kill all the spiders hiding in there)

Now here is just a sneak peek of the "almost" completed work. I still have yet to put a protective coat over the top, and a little bit more distressing to do. But for now......

I really liked the wood on this piece and wanted to keep some of it, so the top was left alone.

The hardware on the piece are all of it's original ones, I decided to keep them the way because I felt they complimented the wood perfectly.

Hope you all enjoyed this short post. I will be posted a bunch more shortly and cannot wait to show you a lot more stuff.

Take care everyone!

Big Hugs!

Melissa