I was planning on doing a New Year reflections round up post but yesterday I spotted on Flowerona that Rona had featured a blog post based on a technique called Rose, Thorn and Bud which I absolutely loved.
This New Year Thoughts and Reflections, Rose, Thorn and Bud post is very much inspired by that. The idea behind it is to decide on your highlights of the year (rose), your challenges and things that went wrong throughout the year (thorn) and lastly what you’re looking forward to/planning for the year ahead (bud).
So here are my reflections for the past year and my plans for 2018…
Roses
- Re-branding and launching our shiny new website
- Celebrating British Flowers Week with a window installation at Joy’s flagship store.
- Launching our one to one masterclasses
- Reaching 11.7k follwers on Instagram!
- Our Blushing collaborative editorial shoot was featured on Wedding Sparrow
- Flowering lots of gorgeous weddings for our lovely couples
- The opportunity to flower at the stunning Kew Gardens
- Our Horniman entrance design image was chosen to be featured on Flowerona #underthefloralspell instagram account and received 4,009 likes!
- Attending a one to one workshop with Vervain
- Working with charities, using my skill set and love of flowers to help others.
- Delivering an hour long presentation on marketing for a small business to a class of A level students and over coming a fear I had of speaking in public!
- Creating flowers for a Gatsby inspired private event
- Having our bouquet featured on the front cover of Perfect Wedding Magazine
- Being featured on Rock my Style with a career change post
- Holidaying in Dubrovnik, Croatia
- Celebrating my one year wedding anniversary with a weekend away in Norfolk
- Attending a clay taster day at the Clay Room and learning a new skill
- Teaching at our Christmas wreath masterclass
The entrance design image that was featured on #underthefloralspell
Thorns
- Struggling to do everything that entails running a business and having to wear many hats (floral designer, flower buyer, marketing manager, accountant, admin assistant etc) is often overwhelming. Lots of prioritising the more important jobs in order to stay on top of everything which has sadly meant that blogging hasn’t happened as regularly as I would have liked so 2018 will be re-organising my schedule and processes so that my day’s are more productive and I’m able to get more done I may also look into out sourcing some of my day to day tasks to lighten my work load.
- Not having a suitable workshop to teach in is something I have found challenging this year as teaching flowers is something that I’m keen to do a lot more of, however I’m thrilled that we found Claire Graham’s stunning studio which is just perfect and where we now teach all of our one to one classes. I’m also currently in the process of finding a suitable venue where we can host our regular seasonal masterclasses too, so watch this space!
- 2017 has been a very tough year for me due to personal reasons and has tested my strength and resilience many levels, in all honesty I look back on this year and wonder how an earth I managed to achieve all that I did when I have been having a tough time behind the scenes (ones thing for sure is it wouldn’t have been possible without my amazing team of freelance girls and to them I am very thankful). Due to this I have made some big changes to the business going forward into 2018 and one of those is that I shall be taking on less weddings to allow more free time to work on other arms of the business. I’m now keen to build on along with having more free time for myself, something that I have realised is essential for my own health and well being.
Buds
- Attending Moss and Stone’s A Spring Study Workshop
- Teaching more with our floral masterclasses
- Getting out of the office more and meeting people face to face
- Prioritising regular exercise and working on my mindset with weekly meditation classes
- Being a regular contributor to new life style blog Coco Lane
- Continuing to work with charities
- Pursue speaking and mentoring opportunities
- Continue to develop design ideas and enjoy flowers
The rose, thorn and bud technique was such a great task to do and feels good putting pen to paper (well fingers to keyboard actually but you get the gist!) sharing our reflections and all we have achieved over the last year along with our aspirations for the year ahead. I, like many others can be guilty of being too busy and not taking the time to celebrate the positives as they happen so having them all in one place really does make you realise how far you have come over the last year. I’m hoping that 2018 will be a brighter one from a personal perspective and very much looking forward to starting a fresh new year. How has your 2017 been? What are your roses ,thorns and buds? I would love to know!
I would like to wish you a very happy New Year I hope that 2018 is a wonderful year for you.
Image credit: Claire Graham
Great piece Joanne. Very inspiring. I wish you all the best for 2018… if you ever need help let me know xx