February 6, 2020

Healing Power of Flowers

As many of you know, as a young mother I was faced with some difficult years. Beyond a series of successive corporate moves for my husband, one of my children was diagnosed (at the age of 2) with a complicated speech and language disorder. At that time and in the following years, I found myself on a journey for which I felt both unprepared and ill-equipped to travel.

As I tried to learn to navigate this new path, there were many moments when I struggled to find my footing and consequently experienced periods of deep sadness.  However, I was determined to embrace unfamiliar terrain and took solace in the simple pleasures of life… such as the first day my three children sat and played in the sand together. Events that many parents take for granted. 

While these periods could be dark, I learned to lean into my fears and find ways to bring light into our home. It was during that time that I began a habit (that I continue today) of buying fresh cut flowers each week. The simple act of bringing in something awash with color really buoyed my spirits and helped change my internal narrative.

Looking back, I can see that this time while painful laid the foundation for my work which eventually became the Zen of Slow Cooking.

It’s in that spirit that I asked my dear friend Katie Ford to share her passion for healing through flowers by creating a simple bouquet you can make in your own home.

Before we begin, Katie wanted to share her story:

Back in 2016, If someone were to tell me that I would have my own floral business, I’d have laughed and told them they were crazy. Neither I (nor my husband, Tom) would have ever thought I had a creative bone in my body.  Frankly, I found drawing a stick figure to be challenging and I’m not exaggerating.

Fast forward to February 2020, and my flower business, Flowers By Katie Ford (STILL seems strange saying that!) is blooming and I’ve moved into a great new store front in Lake Bluff. I have three incredible women working with me, and we have expanded greatly, doing weddings and events on top of the one-off orders we receive each day.

What one might call LUCKY, I call God’s hand. I truly believe that God called me to do his work through flowers. I believe flowers bring joy to others and bring happiness during difficult times.

Let’s go back a few years and I’ll tell you why I think God and fate played their cards for me to be where I stand today.  

In the summer of 2014, literally at the end of a fantastic family vacation out east, I was getting my nails done, of all things, and out of nowhere, this cloud of darkness came over me, and when I say it came over me, it did and with a vengeance. It was a really dark time- out of the blue- scary and the symptoms didn’t leave for weeks, and truly scared the heck out of me.  In short, I’d had a breakdown, and it was a life changer.  

After getting stabilized with medicine and a lot of help, I worked really hard to understand the causes of this breakdown, and ultimately found the definition of what I had is that of mental illness, and what I decided to do then and there was to ACCEPT I had an illness, and to WORK at understanding it and hopefully, by UNDERSTANDING that I had this problem, I would ACCEPT it, which I think was the key to moving forward.  

Anyway, upon understanding and ACCEPTING this illness, I worked to put the pieces of my life back together (I had a husband and four children at this time), and during my recovery, I found peace in, of all things, making floral arrangements. Where this came from, I have TRULY had no idea, but as I healed and worked to understand my illness and the causes, I became enchanted with flowers and the happiness they brought me.  I believe that combination of understanding my limits, slowing my life down, and LEARNING to practice self-care, along with prayer and my faith in God, showed me the way to blooms.

That’s my story and the journey continues with new and wonderful twists and turns along the way.  I thank God for this gift and the AMAZING community of people who have supported me both personally as well as the business I am so proud of, Flowers by Katie Ford.


Supplies:-

*Floral cutters or wire cutters

*10” by 10” vessel-Water-Oasis floral netting-

*10 stems of greens-4 stems wax flower or Heather

*6 stems roses for sides of vessel-

*4 white or colored medium sized hydrangea-

*6 tulips-

*3 anemone-

*4 astilbe-

2 red roses to place in center of arrangement

Picture #1 I cut 12” by 14” Oasis Floral Netting (you can substitute any type of wire found at a local hardware store).  Once the wire was cut, I folded and fit it into the vessel.  You want to overlap and make two layers of wire so that the stems will stay in place. If you don’t want to use wire, you can use tape and make a grid.
Picture #2 Strip the greens to make sure all leaves are off of the part of the stem that is placed in the water.  Then start threading greens and longer flowers around the outside of the vessel.  

Author’s Note

Picture #3 Once the greens are placed on outside of the vessel, you can place a sprig of greens in the middle of the arrangements and then the roses on each corner of the arrangement.  
Picture #4 I then placed FOUR white hydrangea at EACH CORNER, resting on top of the already placed roses.  I used pink roses, to fill in the gaps between hydrangea and the sides of the vessels.  Again, you can substitute carnations for the roses, mini green hydrangea for the bigger hydrangea.  You can also use Gerbera daisies or alstroemerias.

Picture #5 I then begin adding accent flowers to the arrangement.  The focal flower is in the center of the arrangement and is usually the “star of the show”.  In this arrangement, it’s the red pearl rose.  I also added fringe tulips.  
Picture #6 In this final picture, you can see the colors and textures building on each other.  There is hot pink anemone, pink astilbe, and darker pink parrot tulips added.  As I mentioned before, you can substitute different types of flowers and add colors to your arrangement making it more interesting and fuller looking.  Be as creative and colorful as you like.  Take a step back and take a breath, you will know when you done!

Author’s Note…

Welcome to our slow cooking journey! For all of our new followers I begin each month with a Zen inspiration (such as today) and Jane (my business partner) follows up with a few new or treasured recipes for your slow cooker or Instant Pot.  We also have a newsletter which shares highlights of the month.  And, on a personal note, many people have asked me over the years how my son is doing and and the answer is…wonderful!  Over time, he learned how to talk and thankfully has grown into a charming, handsome young man.

Zen Moment

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”

Vivian Greene

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Filed Under: Zen Inspirations