Every year in the Spring I start watching the peony plants. From their first little pink shoots, to the dark green leaves, and then finally, finally, the buds. And the buds, and the buds. It seems like forever that the buds stay there, getting only imperceptibly bigger each week.

Usually, about the time I’ve given up on them opening at all, WHAM. They haven’t just opened, they’ve exploded. And oh, does it smell amazing back there.

I usually just let them be, enjoying them while they last in the garden. But this year, my three-year-old daughter and I have a new ritual, invented by her. Each Saturday, in the last morning, we take a small canning jar full of water out the garden with a pair of scissors and we pick flowers to grace our table for the coming week. It all started with the tulips, and then with the dandelions, and now it’s just part of what we do each week.

So, this week, of course, we had to pick the peonies. We decided to keep it simple and just pair them with a little bit of Lady’s Mantle, and bring them in. I love them.

Having fresh flowers in the house is new for me. I have had them before, usually big bouquets of whatever was happening outside in a big pitcher (like the one on my mantel from last year). But then they would get all gross and I couldn’t deal with them and they’d sit. And so I wouldn’t get more. But these little bouquets, they’re fine. They’re small enough that I can just grab the jar, toss the spent flowers in the compost and start again. It’s nice! I didn’t think I was meant to have fresh flowers in my home, but it turns out I just needed to find a way to have it work for me. I love making those discoveries.

The other big project I’ve been working on is finally painting my workshop table. I’ll show that more tomorrow, but meanwhile, here’s a sneak peek!

What about you, do you have peonies in your garden?

P.S. Linking up to The Dedicated House, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Creative Cain Cabin.

You're reading A Peony Bouquet from the Garden, originally posted on Cottage Magpie. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to visit the Cottage Magpie website, or come join the conversation on Facebook, or Twitter. Thanks for reading!

After that great garage sale, I was feeling like making something happen in my life. Do you ever feel that way? That you just want to Make Something Happen? I do. I definitely do.

The thing is, I have lots of life projects that I work on — building my business, trying to be a writer, homeschooling my kids, all the maintenance that goes with running a home… you know what I mean. And all of those things have looooong project timelines. Little steps, along the long path to where you are going. And I am fine with that. Truly.

BUT. Sometimes I want to just get some results, youknowwhatimean? This last weekend was one of those times, and this little cabinet was the target of my restlessness.

In one corner of our family room is a little spot where Baby Girl plays house, and restaurant and gives tea parties. You can just see the little table there in the corner by the green cabinets.

A few months ago, Mr. Magpie found this little wall cabinet at the Goodwill and brought it home. I knew on sight it would be perfect to make a little wall-hung china hutch for Baby Girl’s tea things.

When he found it, it looked like this:

Then after the makeover, it looked like this:

Baby Girl picked out the colors from my collection of sample paint and helped me paint it. It was her idea to put the pink on first, then the yellow so the pink would show through when we sanded it down.

It was my idea to leave the knobs pink. I love pink and yellow together. It’s my favorite color combination. I also love pink and orange and pink and green.

It’s not perfect, and I scratched the glass up when I sanded it (oops). But I don’t care. I made something with my little girl, and it was so fun. I didn’t know a 3 1/2 year old child could be so patient and careful with paint. Neither my husband or my son can be, so this is new for me.

I love how it turned out, and I can’t wait to get it set up so she can put her little blue bottles in there along with the little tea cups and the vintage plates I found for her. Maybe even with a little posy of roses from the garden for special occasions.

Lest you worry that Rocket Boy doesn’t get any of my time or attention, let me assure you that he does. It’s just that all he wants are robots and legos and time with robots and legos… and none of them are very pretty for the blog! Although we do take pictures of all of his creations. I am also working on his summer quilt and helping him organize his room better. Maybe this summer we can finally dig it out enough to do some fun projects in there and you can finally see what his space is like. At least, for the 3.5 seconds that I am taking pictures. After that, well, all bets are off, I’ll just say that.

What about you? Are you careful with paint? Did you have a tea set when you were little? I didn’t, so that part is new for me, too!

P.S. For those of you who are new here and wondering why my son is called Rocket Boy, he gave himself that name years ago. Here’s that story.

P.P.S. Linking up to: French Country Cottage, Jennifer Rizzo, Redoux Interiors and Common Ground.

You're reading Baby Girl’s Tea Cabinet Makeover, originally posted on Cottage Magpie. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to visit the Cottage Magpie website, or come join the conversation on Facebook, or Twitter. Thanks for reading!

Every Spring, about the end of April, I start watching for the roses to bloom. The first one to go is always the Lady Bank’s rose that’s on the site gate arbor. After that, the rose hedge starts to go, and then about now, all of the rest of the roses join in. It’s my favorite.

This year is especially exciting because I have several new roses that were given to me by a friend before she moved to California, and so my rose collection effectively doubled instantly. The roses smell AMAZING. I haven’t brought any inside yet because I can’t bear to take them out of the garden, but as good as they smell, it’s only a matter of time before I succumb.

The most fragrant of the roses is one that’s new to me, Camaieux. It has a clean, fresh scent that’s just intoxicating. I’ve never had a striped rose before and I probably would have never bought one because I would have thought I wouldn’t like it. But I loooove it, and not just because of how it smells. It’s so pretty!

Camaieux

The other new rose that’s blooming is one that I have photographed in rose gardens over and over and over again because it’s just that perfect. It’s called “Cottage Rose” and it’s a beautiful pink cabbage rose. I don’t have a picture of the gorgeous quartered bloom, but trust me, it’s stunning. And also smells fantastic. I am so thankful to have been given this rose.

Cottage Rose

Another fragrant rose that I brought with me from my old house is this beautiful Rugosa rose called “Hansa.” It’s been transplanted half a dozen times (eeep) and still is going strong. I just love Rugosa roses for this reason.

Hansa

The house also came with this mystery rose that grows on the back fence. It surprises me every year because it’s huge and it grows and blooms in nearly full shade. I suspect it may be a Dr. Huey growing from a rootstock. It grows from the other side of the chain link fence, and the neighbor (who is also a Master Gardener) has tried to get rid of it, but it just keeps growing. Now it’s all on my side, and the roots are under the hedge, so I think we’re stuck with it. There are worse fates. You can see it even better in the pictures I posted last year of it blooming.

Dr. Huey (?)

The first rose I bought and planted myself is the Lady Bank’s rose that’s on the arbor gate. It blooms early, and only once, and when it’s done that’s it for the year. But it’s worth it to see the cascades of little yellow flowers coming down. There’s a clematis on there with it, too, so it will give us purple flowers as the season continues.

Lady Banks

The most traffic-stopping roses I have planted by far are the roses in the rose hedge. I’ve been gradually adding a couple of plants each year, bought either on clearance or bareroot at the beginning of the season, and eventually they will stretch across the entire front of my front garden along the fence. The first six I got for $2 each on clearance and I didn’t know what colors they were. They’re Knock Out roses, and I have a mix of the regular bright bright double pink ones and the slightly lighter medium pink double ones. These roses are amazing. They bloom like nobody’s business and you can cut them with hedge clippers in Spring to keep their shape. They don’t get any blackspot (a plague in my region) and just go and go and go. They’re not fancy, but they’re great for what I’m using them for. My only wish is that I had all medium pink ones beause the bright ones are SO BRIGHT, but really, I’m lucky to have so many roses blooming without maintenance, so I won’t complain.

Knock Out

I’ve started underplanting the hedge with catmint (this is “Walker’s Low”). I started with one plant and divide it every year. Soon I’ll have enough to stretch the whole way along with the roses. I love how the purple and pink look together. Plus it keeps the deer out of my garden.

Here, you can see how the catmint only is on the first section so far:

It’s always a process! I’m hoping this year is my year, though, to finish this front border. I’ll have to wait on the roses, but I have been able to scrounge up the fence posts and I have lots of catmint. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find some of the roses on clearance this fall.

Meanwhile, there are still a few more roses crammed into my garden, but none of them are blooming yet this year. I’ll let you know when they do!

Do you have any roses in your garden?

You're reading All the Roses, originally posted on Cottage Magpie. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to visit the Cottage Magpie website, or come join the conversation on Facebook, or Twitter. Thanks for reading!

This pillow has been in the works for. Well, ever. I made the first yo-yo’s in May of 2011. So, yep, two years. Wow, we’re slow around here. Eeep!

Well, at least it’s finally done, that’s the main thing, right? We’ll focus on that.

I don’t have a tutorial for this per se. I just started making yo-yos, and then I attached them together until they were big enough to fit the pillow form I had. Then I sewed them to a square of fabric then turned that into a pillow cover using my usual method, except I but a quilt-style binding on it instead of turning. I kind of just did it because I wasn’t sure if it would turn out or not!

I actually have all the scraps set aside to make a quilt-size yo-yo quilt, so maybe there’s hope for tutorials, because I can at least show how I’m doing that.

Traditionally the quilt would be just open with no backing, but knowing my house, I think I might go for the appliqued version. Otherwise it won’t survive.

The interesting thing, is that I have discovered that I actually really love hand sewing. It’s so relaxing and satisfying. Unfortunately I don’t have lots of time to do it, but I try to squeeze it in when I can. Probably I should do more sewing and less Facebook. I probably need a sign that says that. More Sewing, Less Facebook. Heh. I’m picturing subway art. What do you think?

Do you sew?

Linking up to: Cozy Little House and Creative Cain Cabin

You're reading I Finally Finished Baby Girl’s Yo-Yo Pillow, originally posted on Cottage Magpie. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to visit the Cottage Magpie website, or come join the conversation on Facebook, or Twitter. Thanks for reading!

When I lived in the city, garage sales were always on Saturday and Sunday. I thought they were like this everywhere. But in the town I live in now, garage sales are always on Friday and Saturday. I’ve lived here for six years and it still surprises me.

So this morning when we were about to load up and go help my Mom, and I saw a bunch of cars and people in the neighbor’s driveway, I couldn’t figure it out.

“I wonder what’s going on over there?” I said.

It was Mr. Magpie who clued me in. “What do you mean? The garage sale?”

Did…. you say… garage sale????

Oh. Yes.

The pressed glass bottles were what I found first, then the vintage books. The tiny turquoise bottles I found last. They are to add to Baby Girl’s little vintage tea set.

In the middle of it all, I found the vintage lunch boxes. Oh. My. There were about a dozen. This blue one was the least expensive at $5, so I brought it home. Say hello to my soon-to-be new sewing kit!

All of those treasures were about $15, and I came home. But I couldn’t forget that other lunch box, the bright red one with the push button closure. I actually sent Mr. Magpie back for it, and that set me back another $10. Ouch! But I love it. It’s going to be our new first aid kit.

All the details and the colors just make me so happy.

I don’t actually go to garage sales that often. They’re fantastic and I love them. But we are very careful with money, and I have a leeetle problem leaving treasure behind. So it’s best that I just not go into the den of temptation as it were.

But this time it was worth it.

Now if I can just get that last pile of junk out of the workshop, I can start displaying some of these things!!!

Guess I know what I’m doing this weekend. Ahem.

How about you? What are you doing this weekend? Any garage sales in store?

Linking to: A Stroll Through Life and My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

You're reading I Love It When a Garage Sale Breaks Out, originally posted on Cottage Magpie. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to visit the Cottage Magpie website, or come join the conversation on Facebook, or Twitter. Thanks for reading!

I am sometimes amazed at how different the garden looks now from when I first moved here. I mean, I don’t know why, really. I’ve worked on it for hours upon hours and made so many changes. But for some reason, at each given moment in time it seems like things are just going to stay that way forever. That you’re never going to get where you want to go. And yet, in the nearly six years we’ve lived here, things have changed so much.

When we first moved here there was grass, barkdust and a few overgrown rhododendrons. Nothing else. The end. I worked and worked and worked at it and it didn’t seem to get any better. I never thought I’d ever have anything pretty at all. But guess what? A few years later and all that work starts to accumulate and there’s little bits of cottage garden goodness all over the place.

Here’s some of the things that are blooming right now in my garden.

Lady Banks Rose

Cottage Rose

Knockout Rose Hedge and Catmint “Walker’s Low”

Spanish Lavender

“Shirley” Poppies & Foxgloves

Red Valerian & Clematis

“Superstition” Bearded Iris

Foxgloves

Is there anything blooming right now in your garden?

P.S. Linking up to May Dreams Gardens and An Oregon Cottage.

You're reading A Confection of Spring, originally posted on Cottage Magpie. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to visit the Cottage Magpie website, or come join the conversation on Facebook, or Twitter. Thanks for reading!

It’s actually kind of amazing to me how long it takes to clean stuff. I mean, not regular cleaning, although that is weirdly time consuming as well. I mean going through stuff. Boxes and boxes and (@#?*$(*^!@ boxes of STUFF. So. Much. Stuff.

All in the name of trying to actually fit in my workshop. Books have been thinned, projects have been finished in the simplest, fastest way, magazines have been recycled, fabric has been donated, shelves have been added. I don’t mind or anything, it’s kind of fun and it’s quite liberating to get rid of the excess. It’s just a much longer process than I had realized!!

The good news is that the more I keep working on it, the better it gets. I still have several boxes of stuff in here to deal with, but overall the room is not bad, not bad at all!! You remember that when I showed it to you the other day it was completely swamped with boxes, right?

Well, here’s what it looks like now:

Can you hear the Hallelujah Chorus? It’s so much better!

Here’s the other angle from last week:

And from today:

There’s still piles hiding in both corners at the bases of the bookshelves, and I still have many projects, but I am so happy with how far I’ve come.

I feel like I can finally see and appreciate the things in here, like my little yellow cabinet.

The fabric on the shelves really inspires me:

I’m pretending I don’t remember about the other 20-30 boxes of stuff in the someday-mudroom. So let’s not mention those, shall we?

The garden is calling me and I’ve been *mostly* successful at staying focused, although I’ve done a couple of things out there. I’ll tell you about those next.

Whew! Now, to stop patting myself on the back and get back to work.

What about you? Are you working inside or outside these days?

You're reading Workshop Progress, originally posted on Cottage Magpie. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to visit the Cottage Magpie website, or come join the conversation on Facebook, or Twitter. Thanks for reading!

In case you were wondering, I did get the two main walls of my workshop painted a couple of weeks ago. (You remember my agonizing process on the color.) I ended up choosing white like so many of you recommended (especially after seeing pictures from my favorite decorating book). I love it. LOVE love love.

BUT. I’m never going to enjoy being in here unless I actually *fit* in here, which means that there’s room on all the shelves, and that what is on those shelves is inspiring, beautiful, usable materials that I am in love with. Nothing else.

Which, you know, meant I had to empty out all the shelves and all the junk piled in the corners and everything so I could go through it.

Which, you know, means that my workshop, at the moment, looks like this:

(GASP.)

Lest you think that is not so bad, here’s another angle.

I’m sorry. I know you can’t unsee that. I can’t either, unfortunately. I have to look at it all day, since I work from home and this is also my office.

BUT, there is hope. I am going through everything and I’m getting rid of a TON of stuff.

I’m also sewing a ton of stuff, because (and this should come as no surprise to anyone, ever) I have about 52x more stuff than will actually fit in here. But I don’t want to give *all* of it away, so I’m sewing a bunch of stuff up so that it can go on and live the useful life it was meant to and leave more space on my shelves.

One way or the other, though, this space will be clean and organized and bright and beautiful and inspiring, even if it means getting rid of 80% of it.

I’ll keep you posted.

What about you? Do you have more stuff than will fit in your workshop, craft space or office? Or are you one of those rare individuals who doesn’t bring home more than their house will hold (in which case, how do you do that?)

You're reading In Case You Were Wondering…, originally posted on Cottage Magpie. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to visit the Cottage Magpie website, or come join the conversation on Facebook, or Twitter. Thanks for reading!

Spring and Fall are my favorite seasons by far. I mean, there are things about all of the seasons that I love, but there’s just something especially good about Spring and Fall. Right now, of course, I think Spring is by far my favorite, but talk to me in October, and I’ll likely throw Spring over for the crisp, sunny days of Fall and the upcoming holidays.

For now, I’m in heaven. I had a great birthday, I’m getting lots done, and the cherry trees are blooming. They’ve just reached that phase where they are going to send showers of petals through the air like a fairytale. I love it.

I took a whole bunch of pictures a few days ago, and I wanted to have somewhere on here to keep them, so I decided to start setting up a little gardening area where I can keep all my plant information and photos, seasonal bloom information, tools and how to’s, stuff like that. I’m setting up a little section for each of my favorite hobbies so that I can have my own personal reference of the information I use most often. (I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had to go back to the blog to re-print a favorite recipe!).

So — there’s not much there yet, just the one post with the five million photos of the cherry tree out front, and one about picket fences that’s mostly photos of my old house. But I hope you’ll at least cruise around and check it out. Slowly but surely I’ll add more.

Do you love Spring?

You're reading The Cherry Trees Are Blooming, originally posted on Cottage Magpie. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to visit the Cottage Magpie website, or come join the conversation on Facebook, or Twitter. Thanks for reading!

Has the weather where you live been unseasonably lovely? It sure has here. Not that I’m complaining. We’ve had really cold, rainy Springs the lasat few years, so having a sunny, warm Spring suits me just fine.

On Saturday I thought I might just do a little in the garden, then come back in to sew and work on my workshop space, but I ended up staying out almost the whole day. Once you get started, it’s really hard to stop, I swear. It’s so relaxing, especially when the kids get occupied with other things and I’m just out there, working my way through the weeds, a little bit at a time.

I had actually intended to work on the front garden, since I am hoping to really make that look pretty this year, but I was heading into the someday-mudroom to find my gardening stuff, and I noticed the pie cherry blooming by the back porch. And then, as I was looking at the blooms, I noticed the little sitting area in the gazebo-thing behind that.

I kind of forgot it was back there all winter, it was such a weedy, overgrown mess. But it’s a cute little spot tucked in the corner of the garden.

And I thought. Well, I’ll just do a little clean-up of that area as a start. Then I’ll go back out front.

The thing is, I was planning to take all of this out. I know, shocking, but I really need more vegetable gardening space, and I have the whole front yard for pretty stuff, so I was going to convert it all to veggies. But then I started cleaning and weeding. The gravel started to look so pretty with the lush green plants around it.

The bird and butterfly garden next to the gazebo thing is bursting with things that will all bloom this summer.

It’s looked so pretty there in past years, I’m not sure if I have the heart to rip it all out again.

Either way, it sure feels good to make the garden start to look nice again. It was so neglected over the winter that I had all but given up on it!! But a few hours of weeding and cleaning out the dead foliage from last year, and it looks pretty again. So satisfying.

What about you? Have you started the Spring garden clean up yet? Or did you do yours last fall?

You're reading First Garden Cleanup of the Season, originally posted on Cottage Magpie. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to visit the Cottage Magpie website, or come join the conversation on Facebook, or Twitter. Thanks for reading!