Arranging Flowers and Watercolor at Paint Night

I love creating things — baking, cooking, sewing, knitting, painting, crafting. Virtually all of my favorite hobbies revolve around creation. There’s something so magical about making something that didn’t exist before, because it is truly a product of you. No one else can claim it. You can make it completely your own. And a lot of love, passion, dedication, and commitment goes into those projects with a tangible result. They’re special. They’re important.

In the grand scheme of everything I do in and with my life, those things that I create are amongst my favorite. The only things I love more are my family (both the human members and the furry mammal members) and my friends. They say that people shouldn’t measure their blessings by the number of things they have, but in a sense I completely disagree. My life is made so much richer because of the things that I create.

This is probably obvious since I write a food blog, and while the blog itself isn’t tangible, many of the things I share on it are. I bake to make myself happy, I bake to make others happy, and I bake because it’s a physical act that makes me feel good. But beyond the baking, there is so much more happiness and inspiration in my life! Flowers are one of those things, and a new hobby I’ve thrown myself into with so much excitement and enthusiasm.

A few weeks ago, a couple girlfriends and I attended a paint night at The Paint Bar in downtown Boston. We picked the particular event because it was a special evening hosted in conjunction with Central Square Florist. The evening started with a mini floral arranging session with Jackie from Central Square Florist, and then a watercolor class where we had the opportunity to paint the floral arrangement we’d made.

It was epic.

I should say that I am extremely Type A, and I think watercolor is hard for people like me. It moves freely and changes when you don’t want it to, and it’s a completely imperfect science. You have to let go of a good measure of control, and just see what happens. I’m sure if I was an expert watercolor-er (watercolorist?), I’d be able to have a lot more control and finesse, but that evening was the first time I’d picked up a watercolor brush in probably 15-20 years, so I didn’t have a lot to go on.

Still, it was so much fun. We came away from the evening with little watercolor flower portraits, hardly resembling those bouquets we’d made ourselves, but pretty and satisfying nonetheless. We also got to bring home our bouquets, which I left in my room and admired for days. The fragrant hyacinth made me room smell amazing!

When I got home, I played around with taking a few more pictures of my bouquet, and admiring it’s diversity of colors and textures. It wasn’t the kind of bouquet you might find at a store or available for order from a florist, but it had it’s own charm and I loved it. 

The weekend after that class, I went out and bought a bunch of random bouquets from Trader Joe’s, and brought them home to play with myself. Then, I did the same the following weekend. And it seems now, that after just that one evening, and years of keeping fresh flowers around the house, I’ve found a new passion. Flowers aren’t cheap, but to me, they’re worth it. Having something beautiful to look at all week long is a pleasure I’m happy to indulge in, and I want to share it with you! I’ve been failing pretty miserable at posting regular updates lately, so I can’t commit to a regular floral design installation, but I’ll be adding posts to the regular rotation of posts. I’m pretty excited, and I hope you are too!

http://www.sweetlyserendipity.com/