the therapeutic bouquet

As you may know, I am a firm believer in the power of doing something creative each day.  Creating something gives me satisfaction, pleasure and the simple enjoyment of the finished result.  This is my therapeutic bouquet.

Since the beginning of the week, my daily to-do list has started with ‘ bouquet-dahlias-blog’.  Each day I’d work down the list, checking off tasks at this busy time of year.    Although it doesn’t take that long to put together a bouquet, there were continually things that got in my way. 

So after my last email of the day on Friday afternoon, I grabbed a pair of secateurs and headed for the garden.   As I walked out the door I got a call by Skype that I had to take, and when I finished that another call came in equally important.  The result was that I was rushing around the garden at 7pm cutting as I went and by the time I finished the bouquet, dusk was setting in.

At the moment in the garden there are dahlias, roses and some foliage that is beginning to take on a hint of orange.   I popped them all into an old tureen, starting with the outline foliage then filling in the details.  Set it up on a table in front of the barn and pulled out my tripod.

Thank goodness for clever cameras and bright coloured flowers!   I’m fairly clueless when it comes to camera settings, but I adjusted the aperture and the ISO and hoped for the best, relying on my Nikon to do the hard work.

This is the result.  A pretty and colourful bouquet for the weekend, using only flowers, foliage and blackberries from the garden.   It took ten minutes to pick, ten minutes to set up and ten minutes to shoot.   

So next time your energy levels feel low, and you can carve out half an hour to ‘play’, don’t hesitate!    Whether it is a bouquet, sewing, drawing or baking, the time you spend being creative will be repaid many times over.

This bouquet is for you.   Have  a lovely weekend