When my new black amethyst glass vases arrived in the mail this week I could hardly wait to put them to work displaying the new lovelies blooming in my garden. But wait I did. What a crazy week! Appointment after appointment, email after email, open houses, meetings…phew. Add on house guests descending en masse and five dogs taking over every inch of the house and come Friday morning I hightailed it to the flower markets, dying to get out of the madness!

I was looking for peonies but it’s been a long, cold winter in the Northwest, so while there were a few hot pink ones to be had, they were a bit sad looking for $5 a stem (yes, wholesale!) I settled for ranunculus instead because, really, they do look like baby peonies and then I came home and raided my garden for hellebore and cherry blossom. I love the contrast of the blush and hot pink against the black vases and how they are currently hard at work brightening up my living room, stealing the spotlight from five terriers and their never-ending dog hair…