I guess it’s a good thing I haven’t posted lately, because I’ve been busy! Just gonna be honest, not all of these have sold. I think people around me are enjoying the no-sale bouquets, lol! But every single bouquet or arrangement has been seen by people and had a CHANCE to sell. I’m considering that a win!

I had five arrangements last week at a local coffee shop, Tall Rabbit Cafe:

Only two sold, but TWO SOLD! I’m pleased to have sales of any sort. And I’m pretty sure they brightened a lot of people’s day, which makes me very happy! Plus, they’re doing their job as advertisement.

A couple days ago, out of the blue, I got a call asking for an arrangement. She saw my flowers at Tall Rabbit and wanted to order something for her friend. Yay! I see these coffee shop flowers as an investment in spreading the word about Yellow Cottage Neighborhood Flowers, and they do seem to be working…at least for one person :). Hopefully more, as the manager said the business cards are “going like candy.” That’s got to be a good thing!

As a gardener, I certainly know that seeds take a while to sprout and they stay small for a while. Some seeds down sprout (it depends a lot on the soil they fall into) and some grow faster than others. I’m certainly not discouraged. Quite the opposite! The lady who saw them in the coffee shop said they were just gorgeous and stopped her dead in her tracks. When I asked her about colors or arrangement types for her friend’s flowers she left it to me. “You’ve certainly got the touch. Just go with whatever seems good to you.” That was very kind of her.

This is what I made:

Once again, it looks a little flat in the photo, but she seemed very pleased and said she was going to spread the word everywhere she could. What a sweet soul! One of the things I’m realizing with selling flowers is that most people who love flowers (okay, 100% in my experience so far!) are beautiful individuals. It’s such a pleasure to bring them some joy and brightness. Sometimes days seem dark, but flowers are a lovely way of bringing in a bit of a sunrise…or at least a flashlight.

I did a Facebook giveaway of a small bouquet this week (I’m combining this week and last week now; it’s been a bit of a blur), and the dear lady who won ended up buying another arrangement out of my cooler while she was here.

We had a wonderful time poking around my garden and chatting about life, God, writing, and beauty. She even brought me a special little gift in a beautiful package: Lovely homemade flower gift tags!

Having the opportunity to grow flowers and spread them about to people is such an amazing experience. It’s exhausting, don’t get me wrong about that! I find myself working from sun up to sun down…picking, sorting, planning, prepping, arranging, weeding, watering, debugging, doing office work, posting, writing, planning some more, taking photos, trying to sell, planning a different way to sell, calculating whether or not this is worth it, lol :). You get the idea. But I love it. And I’m so grateful I have the chance to give this a go.

I gave a bunch of flowers to people as gifts this week.

Some of them went to people who came to our 4th of July party—I sent people off with the decor when they left:

The photos were awkward with these three because they were bigger than my usual flower arrangements and I didn’t have time to figure anything else out. I also took them from rather strange angles to TRY to keep them on the backdrop, but I really did like how they looked in person!

And I made a couple arrangements for Dave’s female coworkers. I forgot to photograph one, but this is the other:

I also sent market bouquets to farm pickup both last week and this one. Last week they sold fairly well, but this week was a bit of a bust…3 out of 8. But I still sold THREE!

This week all the Tall Rabbit bouquets were in the round instead of front facing. I finally had enough flowers to make it happen!

I finally had yellow flowers bloom, so I featured them in a couple of the arrangements! I just took the flowers over this morning, so here’s hoping they will sell, or at least advertise well for YCNF!

I took one of the market bouquets that didn’t sell yesterday and turned it into this:

The flowers were in the cooler and the cosmos seem a little cranky, but they should open up soon and look beautiful! A friend of mine is speaking for an event today and I’m going to go hear her talk, so I’ll probably take these flowers to her this afternoon.

This week I also approached a local florist and sent pictures of some of my freshly-picked blooms. He said they were absolutely beautiful, but he already had his standing order. He did say he’d text me if he ran out toward the end of the day. It wasn’t a sale, but it was a nice bit of encouragement!

Also, I had my white dahlias listed this week on Fort Wayne Flower Market. No one ordered them (it’s not really up and running until mid-July anyway, although we’re still free to list available flowers), but it was good to know florists had the chance to see my blooms if they happened to stop over. Hopefully someday some will end up in a gorgeous wedding arrangement or something of the sort! That would be so much fun!

Well, those weeds aren’t going to pull themselves (wouldn’t that be amazing?) so I’d better wrap this up! I hope you’re all having a wonderful day!