09/02/2023
This ones a bit of an emotional post but I hope it encourages at least 1 person to carry on doing what they enjoy despite what life may throw at you or people say.
So this hand-tie was done back in 2017 when I was doing a shift a week in a local florist to try and gain more experience. I’d started floristry back in 2012 just for fun, with night and weekend courses around work but was really wanting to take the leap and do it full time, after chickening out a few times previously. Working for other people, especially in floristry shops, you’re expected to learn the ‘house style’ per say, and adapt to it, and this was something I was trying to do and thought I was doing well until the day I made this hand-tie.
That day I was told I could make something myself, for fun - for them to sell on the shop floor. I was so excited and went a lil mad picking all my favourite flowers and colours and came up with this. I was really happy with the end product because I love bunches full of flowers and colour. The shop owners however were far from impressed - I was told that I’d wasted too many flowers, it was expensive, ugly and busy - and it would most likely not sell. I was asked to finish early and go home and they would be in touch with my next shift.
That next shift never came, neither did my pay for the shifts I had done. I knew that the bunch had sold as they had uploaded a picture of a customer with it on their Instagram but when I tried contacting them with regards to shifts and pay a week later, my calls and emails went unanswered.
I avoided flowers for a while after this - the thought of this bunch made me feel anxious and ashamed. However, a few years of working on my mental health & growing flowers in lockdown has put me in a place where I feel comfortable around flowers again.
Sometimes we are too eager to be the best at our passions, especially in a world full of perfect grids. Getting better at anything takes time but really; why does it matter if it’s perfect if it makes you and other’s feel good.