peonie love

My first few blooms of the season....

needed a special place to go. So here's a little project I did today and I wish I'd taken a before. I got this adorable bucket at the thrift store a long time ago for like $2 on half-price day. It was a gross, ugly black but I knew I could give it some love and find somewhere to put it. I primed it well with metal primer and tried out the cheaper spray paint they sell at Wal-mart. It's a minty-greeney-blue color and for this project it worked great! After the paint dried I antiqued it and sanded it in a few small spots.

I tore a little strip of muslin to fray the edges and stamped it with a writing/script stamp all along in it then a little birdie stamp at the end and tied it on for a cute touch.

to put the peonies in I stuck in a ziploc bag which sprung a leak, I'm assuming from the rocks I put in the bucket to keep it from blowing around so much in this Oklahoma wind. Plan B was an old plastic gas station cup that I squished in but it showed through the cut-outs so then I put a small square of burlap along the inside to keep it from showing. Sounds kind of like "If you give a mouse a cookie...."!

The plus side of the wind combined with the oh-so-lovely smell of my peonies, means that every time I walk through my front door, I get a little whiff of heaven.

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