Fly Me To The Moon Florists
"If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden." Claudia Ghandi
April and May have been a blur of floral activity here at Fly Me To The Moon Florists.
The days began so early and ended so late that even the thought of posting was impossible. That's how intense it's been. But I'm not complaining.
Hope you've been well!
See you next week. Have a wonderful weekend!
Mimi
| | |
|
There are many factors that determine whether or not you're ready for the doors of opportunity to open. But for me, it was all about confidence. Or shall I say lack of confidence.
Image: via Eye Prefer Paris
Before our shop, Fly Me To The Moon Florists, opened I knew I had an eye for floral design. I soon developed my own style, but I wasn't confident about it.
Months before the shop even opened, 2 friends asked us to do the flowers for their weddings. Though they had never seen me do flowers, they trusted my design instincts from event decor work they had seen me do.
One had a tropical themed wedding with exotic flowers and the other had a Hollywood glam wedding with tall floral centerpieces at every table. I'm eternally grateful to those women for having faith in me when I didn't quite have it myself.
Image: via Just Call Me Grace
Over the years, I've honed my skills and become more confident.
Here are the 5 lessons I've learned that I hope will help you:
1) Be the expert - I stopped doing exactly what customers told me they wanted and began listening to what their hearts really desired. If someone says they want an elegant look, but what they ask for is actually tacky, my job is to steer them toward what would look best.
2) Trust your instincts. - There was a time when people were coming in insisting that we make these horrible flower arrangements for weddings. I mean ugly! And we did the best we could with what they told us. When I couldn't take it anymore, I began praying for customers who wanted our style. We put a gallery of our work on our website and began asking customers to write reviews. From that moment on, everything changed.
Image: via Just Call Me Grace
3) Accept the applause. - People often call to thank us for the flower arrangements we design. Some even call us before they call the people who actually sent them the flowers. One call might be a fluke. But once the calls started coming in more regularly I knew we were onto something.
4) Count your blessings. - One of our regular customers asked us to do all the flowers for her wedding. She came in for a consult with a huge binder and selected only her ceremony flowers. She told me she trusted me completely to select the color and style of her centerpieces. She laid her eyes on those flower arrangements for the first time when she walked into the reception.
5) Defend your work. - Our goal at Fly Me To The Moon Florist is to delight our customers with flowers. But if we blow it, we make every effort to make it right.
A customer came into our shop last week and told me he did not feel the floral design I made was worth what I charged. He and his wife loved the flower arrangement by the way. But, when he added up the price of each flower, he wondered if he had been ripped off. He said that online, he'd seen arrangements that had many more flowers for the same price.
Image: via pxleyes
I didn't feel offended. I thanked him for letting me know. I didn't say the price included my ability to make a bunch of flowers look like something other than just a bunch of flowers. I didn't even suggest that the arrangements he'd seen on other websites probably used cheaper flowers.
I merely said that the arrangement I made was worth what it cost. But if he really wanted more flowers, I would be glad to give him some. He said, "I guess what I'm actually paying for is your creative ability to make the flowers look great!." He happily declined any additional flowers and drove off in his $60,000 car.
Image: via Whisical Raindrop Cottage Tumblr
There comes a time when you have to take a sober estimate of who you are and what you can do. There's still a lot more for me to learn. But I can now confidently say, I am ready for the doors of opportunity to open.
How about you?
Mimi
| | |
|
Fly Me To The Moon Florists
I've just been tagged by my blogger friend Linda over at My Crafty Home Life to play this game.
Here are the rules:
1) You must post the rules.
2) Answer eleven questions.
3) Tag eleven other bloggers.
4) Ask them 11 new questions.
Here are the 11 Questions I have to answer:
1) What makes you laugh? My kids.
2) What is your favorite quote? "No matter how long the night,the day is sure to come. " African Proverb
3) Are you a morning person? Yes, the earlier the better.
4) What do you do better than most people you know? Pray for others consistently.
5) If you could re-live one day from your childhood what would it be? Sitting under my mom's sewing machine collecting sequins and bits of fancy fabric from dance concert costumes she used to make.
6) What was your best blog post? My most popular was one called, "5 Secrets for Elegant Gift Wrapping for Valentines Day." Nearly 700 visitors that day!
7) When you look back at this year (2012), what will you think will be your greatest accomplishment? Growing my blog to 1000 visitors.
8) Who is your celebrity crush? My husband, the love of my life!
9) What is your favorite movie? It's a tie between the original The Philadelphia Story and The Green Card.
10) What chore do you hate? Mopping the floors.
11) What would be your favorite meal? Anything vegetarian and Indian.
Here are the 11 bloggers I am tagging:
1) Sarah - Modern Country Style
2) Amy - One Artsy Mama
3) Amy - Botannical Brouhaha
4) Sarah - Honey of a Thousand Flowers
5) Claire - Mammabellarte
6) Amanda - Girl In Pink
7) Sheila - A Punch of Color
8) Sania - At Home
9) Vic - Cush & Nooks
10) Mia - Trenday
11) Gloria - Happy To Be
Here are their 11 questions:
1) How did you come up with the name of your blog?
2) What's your favorite snack?
3) If you were making up your own quote, what would it be?
4) What's your favorite flower?
5) Why did you start blogging?
6) What other country would you like to visit?
7) Which word do you have the most difficulty spelling?
8) What's your favorite magazine?
9) If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?
10) What's your dream for the world?
11) What invention would you like to see on the market in your lifetime?
Mimi
| | |
|
Image: Fly Me To The Moon Florists
Please Join Us In Celebrating The 4th Anniversary Of
Fly Me To The Moon Florists
Established November 30, 2007
We're honored to create flower arrangements for you!
Mimi
| | |
|
Green Flower Arrangement - Fly Me To The Moon Florist
I made this flower arrangement 3 weeks ago for one of our weekly flower contracts.
Would you believe, with a few minor substitutions, it is still sitting on display in our flower shop.
Each week we deliver a fresh arrangement and bring back the old one. Sometimes they still look so good I keep them in the shop for display.
At the crack of dawn every Monday and Wednesday, you can find me in the Chelsea Flower Market in New York City.
The flowers arrive at the New York airports at 2:00 am. I try to get there as soon as the wholesalers take the blooms and foliage out of the boxes.
I take the freshest and most interesting flowers to Fly Me To The Moon Florist where they are handled with tender loving care.
Guess that's why this one lasted so long!
How long would you like your fresh flowers to last?
Mimi
| | |
|
I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Botanical Brouhaha yesterday written by my friend Amy.The post was called,"Working Designer Wednesday:Keeping Flowers Fresh in the Flower Shop."
So I decided to write a lengthy response to her post based on my experience here at Fly Me To The Moon Florists.
When I visited her blog today, I was surprised to see that our shop was featured. You can read the post called, "Mimi's Response to Yestersday's Post" here.
How exciting!
Please read it and let me know what you think.
Mimi
Image: Fly Me to The Moon Florists
| | |
|
Red Monochromatic Flower Arrangement
We began the month creating floral arrangements for two special events for the same client. The first was on a Monday.
They requested arrangements with an Asian flair. So we created centerpieces with burgundy cymbidium orchids. They loved them. Said they hadn't seen anything like them before.
The next day we were asked to create flower arrangements for an event for men. They specifically asked that they not be too frilly or feminine.
So I create what I thought were "stunningly beautiful monochromatic flower arrangements" for this event.
I decided to use burgundy calla lilies, red roses, black magic roses (a huge and magnificent deep red rose), red ginger, hypericum berries, celosia, and burgundy leaves.
I was in a hurry when I took the picture of the red monochromatic arrangement above. So it really doesn't do it justice.
Anyway, we checked each of the arrangements to make sure they were perfect. Packed them in boxes and loaded them into the vehicle.
My business partner, Dave, decided to take the invoice with him. As he reviews it, he noticed the following words: "bright and colorful."
We thought the arrangements looked great, but by no stretch of the imagination could they possibly be called "bright and colorful."
As a matter of fact, when I ran out of burgundy leaves and began adding green ones I thought they looked rather Christmasy.
There was no time to make any changes. I didn't have enough "bright and colorful" flowers to add to them anyway.
They were elegant. They were sophisticated. They just weren't" bright and colorful."
I was frantic!
I had two things going for me though:
1) I didn't have to deliver them. That was Dave's job. In my eyes, that would have been "a fate worse then death."
2) Since it was an event for men, there was little chance that there would be carefully coordinated pastel napkins or "bright and colorful" favors at each place setting.
So I do the only thing I know how to do in these situations. I pray. I prayed that they would be so overwhelmed by these "stunningly beautiful monochromatic flower arrangements" that they wouldn't care what color they were.
After major flower deliveries, I usually get a call from Dave giving me the low down on how everything went. He didn't call. And I was way too scared to call him. Figured I'd just wait to hear the bad news when he returned.
As soon as Dave walked into the venue, the staff began calling to him, "Let me see. Let me see." They were apparently so pleased with the flower arrangements from the day before that they could not wait to see these.
Our contact at the venue took one look at them and said, "These are beautiful!" The rest of the staff were saying similar things.
Once Dave realized that we were not in big trouble. He said, "We were worried when we realized at the last moment that you had actually requested bright and colorful floral arrangements. " She told him, "No, this is EXACTLY what I wanted."
Every day I'm learning. When I really do my thing with flowers. Truly my thing. People are always delighted. More and more of you are just calling and trusting us to make arrangements for you.
I knew the reds would work for these men as long as I made the arrangements sophisticated, textural and interesting.
But you better believe I won't be making that mistake again!
What have you done wrong that ultimately turned out to be just right?
Mimi
| | |
|
"The secret of contentment is knowing how to enjoy what you have and to be able to lose all desire for things beyond your reach."
Lyn Yutang
Contentment - The state of being mentally or emotionally satisfied with things as they are.
Ambition - An earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame or wealth and the willingness to strive for its attainment.
I think contentment gets a bad rap sometimes. There's real value in being content. It contains both peace and rest. What's wrong with that?
Can't I be content and ambitious? Must I be just one or the other? I don't think so.
I confess. On gray Mondays like today in New York City, I still have to get up at the crack of dawn to buy the freshest, most beautiful flowers for Fly Me To The Moon Florists.
On those days, I'd be content to just stay home.
I don't like trudging from flower wholesaler to flower wholesaler in the pouring rain either.
I could just stay home and order my flowers over the phone like some florists do. But I don't want anybody else picking out flowers for our customers.
I want our boutique flower shop to be the best in Westchester County. I want it to be the it place to buy your flowers.
We've got a great reputation. I am grateful for that. And business is growing.
So I am ambitious. But I want to be content too.
I want to learn to feel great no matter what the weather.
To take life in stride and work dilligently at things I feel passionate about. To be content moment to moment in whatever I'm doing.
Now that's what I call real success. How about you?
Do you think it's possible to be content and ambitious?
Mimi
| | |
|
49 North Broadway
The Great News: A 12 story building is being built right next door to our flower shop, Fly Me To The Moon Florists.
There are many reasons to celebrate:
1) The 96 units at 49 North Broadway will be inhabited by people who may very well become our customers.
2) It's a nice building even though it wll tower over our little boutique flower shop. See a rendering of it above. Note the tiny building to the left. That's Fly Me To The Moon Florists.
The Challenge: A 12 story building is under construction right next door to our flower shop.
Now that the initial drilling has ended and spring is here. We've been wondering what we can do to bring some attention to the exterior of our little flower shop.
Our building has window boxes which will soon be filled with petunias. It has some architectural detail and a snazzy black and white awning. There's a green wheelbarrow type of thing below our display window that holds buckets of cut flowers or flowering plants.
We've been tossing some ideas around and I finally decided to check out some images of European-style flower shops for inspiration.
There's way too much going on in front of this flower shop. But it does have presence. Fly Me To The Moon is about one quarter of the size of this shop.
I really like this one. It has a nice variety of baskets, boxes and vessels holding the merchandise. It has many textures and colors, but is not overdone. The more stuff we put outside though, the more we'll have to lug back inside at the end of the day. Ugh!
Like the use of tables and different levels to display the plants and flowers. This appears to be a mix of cut and potted flowers and plants. We're thinking only green and flowering plants during the warmer months though. Cut flowers can't take that heat.
Love the two large plants standing like wooden soldiers guarding the door. We only have one window though which would make this layout tricky.
This is really nice. Seems like an outdoor room. A nice metal folding chair like that one would be great.
I don't know. What do you think? We really don't want to spend a lot of money on this. I've been looking in thrift shops for old iron furniture, but so is everyone else I guess.
I'd love to hear your ideas! I'm begging you for some ideas!
Mimi
Image: Blognfool Martyn Crossley L'Artisan Fleuriste Annie Roos The Porch & Atelier
| | |
|
Fly Me To The Moon Florists Easter Display
I knew that the first anniversary of First Come Flowers was sometime this month. I've been so busy that I forgot to check which day it was.
I finally made some time to check and discovered that our first post was published on April 7, 2010.
It's been a great first year. I love blogging. In fact I love it so much that I started another blog in my non-existent spare time.
My second blog is called Yonkers Florists Blog. I know. Not very original. But our shop is in Yonkers. I am a florist and it is a blog.
It's actually a gallery of our work updated daily. You can check it out here.
Sometime this year, First Come Flowers will get a re-design. I'm hoping it's sooner rather than later.
Could have done it a long time ago, but technology is just not my thing. Though I am forcing myself to keep up to speed on twitter, our account name is @moonflorists, Facebook and LinkedIn.
I'm working closely with a friend who is very creative. I haven't quite figured out what I want, but I absolutely know what don't want. It's a process.
Thanks so much to all of you for reading First Come Flowers regularly.
Looking forward to learning more about you by reading the zillions of comments you're going to leave this year. LOL!
Have an incredible weekend!
Mimi
Image: Fly Me To The Moon Florists
| | |
|
