Happy Monday!
I’ve been meaning to write a post like this for a while. Based on the day I had yesterday, putting up the Spring and Easter decor, I think that it’s now appropriate.
Pinterest is an amazing tool, but it also has the tendency to make us feel inferior. There are always going to be better houses, better centerpieces, better items in which to decorate with, better, better, better… I found the inspiration for this centerpiece on a blog that I won’t name, but they made it look so easy — like hey, I just magically threw some Peeps into the bowl and shoved some flowers in and it looked perfect.
So imagine my frustration and confusion when I buy four packs of Peeps and a bundle of flowers and excitedly begin to try and execute this, just like the picture and the easy “I just threw it together” sentiment, and it doesn’t work? What’s wrong with me?! Why can I never get it right?! Like creating the perfect centerpiece and doing it all — and doing it all well — is life and death. I dissolved.
I was duped by Pinterest. And I let it say something about me. I let the fact that this didn’t come easy for me dictate the way I felt about myself. And then my loving husband pulled me out of the spiral.
He pointed out some valid arguments. My favorite one was the obvious (but not obvious to me at the time) fact that the blogger I was trying to copy had different tools than I have. A larger trifle dish? A smaller vase? The other way around? Variables. All variables. He also drove home the point that I am too hard on myself… something I know but am working on. And I think that it’s so easy for all of us to be too hard on ourselves these days — especially with social media and the internet.
Sometimes I feel like the expectations we put on ourselves are too high. We want to have a beautiful home with flawless decor, a hot dinner on the table with a homemade pie baking in the oven, all while having the best blown-out hair ever and a designer outfit. It’s a lot of pressure we put on ourselves.
And so relating it back to DIY and decorating bloggers, I appreciate the beautiful finished result photos that we all feel inspired by. I really do. But transparency… I appreciate that even more.
SO, you will need sprinkles. Because the sides of those Peeps, when pulled apart, are hella sticky. You’ve got to coat the sides in sprinkles that have been ground up very finely. Use a mortar and pestle. And when you fill your little trifle dish, put a smaller vase in the center for the flowers. Make sure it is in there before you start adding the Peeps. And then gently fill the trifle bowl around the vase, moving the vase to fit the candy in as you go. Don’t worry about squishing them a little — they’re marshmallows, after all. All of this figured out by the brilliant man I love.
If you buy two bouquets of flowers, you’ll have enough for a little coffee table centerpiece. Or, you might not — depending on the size of your Peep centerpiece.
Drop in a couple of ice cubes every morning in your centerpieces to refresh the water.
And be kind to yourself.