Dose Market

Today was a bit of a wash. I woke up exhausted. Sweet girl Jonnie-Rose had some tummy aches that made her cranky yesterday and up a lot last night. I had about 3 cups of coffee before 8am and decided to stay home until she woke up from her nap, rather then waking her and leaving to be at the studio by a decent work day hour. One thing I got to was cleaning our camera off. I found all these pictures and it was a memory lane moment through the year. Some of these are wedding flowers, the chickens and farm house were from our trip to the Hudson Valley earlier this year and some are just moments that we had around the studio.

We had a walk through at the Lyric Opera House. More on that later, but did you know they do weddings there? Ladies and Gents, it's a beautiful space. If you want classic Chicago I highly recommend you consider this space. I hear there aren't any ghosts, though the place feels like it should have a resident spirit somewhere... that is if you are into that kind of thing.

We are wrapping up the year. We have one more event, Holidose, this Sunday from 10-5pm at Morgan Manufacturing. We will be selling small format wreaths, kissing mistletoe, bell jar terrariums and apothecary goods so make sure to stop by if you are planning on going. And make sure to pick up your tickets here if you want to go! I highly recommend it, as I am sure you have not bought all your presents yet and this place is the place to find locally well made goods.

After that we are closing up shop for the rest of the year. Aside from emailing and cleaning up, we will be taking a much needed 2 week break to relax, enjoy family and friends, maybe work on some personal projects a bit more and just give time to breath. It's been an incredibly busy year and I need a regroup so I can get inspired for the new year.

Hope you are all enjoying the last month of 2015. I am looking forward to seeing you all in 2016. Lot's of exciting changes, projects and fun to be had in the new year!

Flowers + Watercolor

Wow, the summer has flown by. Well, Seth and I had a baby. A girl and she is perfect. The apple of our eye's. Her name is Jonnie-Rose and like her mother she was born early, really early, 5 weeks early. So, naturally, I never took time off from Foxglove. But we managed to make it to here to today thanks to Ali and the countless hands that have helped us along the way. 

Babies are amazing and working with Jonnie-Rose has been an adjustment, but so rewarding. I know that these days won't last long, so I am trying to embrace every minute I get to spend with her at this young age. 

I am super excited about our workshop with our lovely friend Tiffany Wong this weekend. There is one more spot, so if you hurry you can join us for painting, wreaths and some treats from Antique Taco. Sign up here.

The workshop is this Sunday from 10-1pm at Antique Taco's Cool Event Space (perfect for a little extra decoration for your Thanksgiving dinner). 

We will be teaching how to make a rustic holiday wreath and then Tiffany will teach you how to watercolor it. She is incredibly talented and I am super excited to learn myself. I bought a set of water colors earlier in the year in a rare zen moment and haven't had the chance to use them yet. 

Tiffany not only is a talented painter, but she also has music up her sleeve.  Check out everything she does on her website. 

Antique taco will be providing us with a lovely space and with some mexican hot chocolate and abuelita cookies to snack on. 

In additional we will have a small pop up shop with Foxglove Apothecary goods (we have some new items perfect for holiday gifts for you and your friends and family) as well as Tiffany Wong goods for 15% off. 

Can't wait to share some images from the workshop and stay tuned for some new ones in the new year. If you want to learn anything specifically, let us know by dropping us a line at hello@thefoxglovestudio.com.

Now, back to office work. 

Hold On, We're Going Home

I am obsessed with Drake's song Hold On, We're Going Home. I also love the Lykke Li version. Seth is constantly singing it and I am constantly listening to it. When I get up in the morning and am dragging or not looking forward to a day of business "stuff", it really is that type of song that will pump you up. I really don't know much about Drake... but I know I love that song.

Photos by Stephanie Bassos 

I had a grand old time in Up State New York last week and can't wait to share more on that soon, but right now I am trying to catch up with all the biz work that I put on the back burner for a week. It feels good to walk away from the office for a bit, but then can be a bit overwhelming coming back.

Photo by Stephanie Bassos

That is in part, why I decided to have a fun impromptu photo shoot day with Ali and Stephanie. Part of the trip to the East really helped get me inspired again. After winter in Chicago and getting bogged down with the computer, it's hard to stay inspired and excited all of the time. But going to a place where the work was done for us and the flowers were carefully chosen and provided, allowed for creative freedom that I haven't had for some time.

Photo by Stephanie Bassos

This weekend we aren't really doing Mothers Day. I am going to spend the weekend with my mom and Grandma in St. Louis while Seth get's flown down to Austin, TX to play with his band at Psych Fest. Ali will be around on Friday and Saturday for any orders that you might want to place, but we aren't doing it "traditional" style this year. Looking forward to visiting my friends at Urban Buds to see how their growing season is going and to get some blooms for my mom and grandma. Nothing better then locally and lovingly grown flowers.

Time to get cracking on a mood board.

Slow and Steady

It's afternoon on Tuesday and I can't guarantee I will post this until tomorrow or maybe even Thursday. I have been procrastinating on a few things around the office. Not proposals or anything for my sweet clients, but more like, numbers, reports and the overwhelming steps towards the future of Foxglove and our "other" projects.

We are working slow and steady on our flower community growing project with our partner and friend Christine. Being a small business owner, it's hard to figure out the best way to expand and what is the most efficient way to expand financially. It's easy to let my heart take off with all of the things that I want to accomplish with Foxglove, all while ignoring that annoying voice that is very relevant, telling me to tread lightly and cautiously. Since we are still a young floral studio I am spending a lot of time this year educating myself on not only new floral design, but also the business side of things, which is half the battle.

Christine and I met a very nice man in Wisconsin not to far from Seth's lake house on Lake Geneva. He is an organic heirloom tomato farmer now, but has been a pilot and fireman and a business man previously. How we were lucky enough to meet this man I don't know. I feel like he is an angel. If not to everyone, at least to me. Christine and I have surrounded ourselves by some amazing people that want to help and support us in learning to grow and use our own flowers and though we can't jump in to the deep end as fast as we want, we have been given the opportunity to start this new project on the right foot. Bill, the angel, is knowledgable and has this will to mentor. I think what I am most excited about with him, is to have another farmer friend. It is such a small world, flower farmers, real food farmers, animals farmers, that it is exciting to meet and get to know these people that work so hard for such a great reward.

My grandma, if she read this, would probably think I was crazy for wanting to get my hands dirty. She grew up on a farm in IL with her 5 brothers and the stories she tells would keep you entertained for days. I am surprised they all made it off that farm with all their fingers and toes and lives...

Regardless, I look forward to sharing this journey with you as it unfolds. It will be a slow walk, but steady and strong. If anyone knows of a lot in the city that we should look into for flower growing, let us know! That is the step we are on at the moment. Finding the land in the city that would work for the project has been a bit of a challenge.

We were honored to be on a Style Me Pretty feature last week. We worked with such a great team of friends on this shoot and I hope to work with them again. It is inspiring to collaborate with other like minded people. I think that is why we try to do so many photo shoots.  It's a fun thing to do and allows for a different kind of creative space.

Photo by Kate Weinstein

Photo's by Kate Weinstein

 I will share images from some past events when I get back from the Little Flower School workshop next week. That's the next big thing on my plate and I am so looking forward to going to a different area that's new to me. Inspiration nation with like minded people and new surroundings. We received a note today that it will be outside most of the time. It has been awhile since I was able to work with flowers out in nature. I haven't done much traveling lately and realized recently, that travel inspires the hell out of me. Hudson Valley is a gorgeous area and all kinds of creative companies are popping up around there. Hope there is a chance to explore the area a bit while I am there.

Also, look at June! Studio babe is getting so big, but even more, I kind of wanted to steal her outfit. That whole day she just rocked it. Seriously cool baby and excited for her and baby Bohn to get into trouble together.

This has been posted today, so at least I didn't procrastinate to much! Happy Earth Day, folks.

At least it's a Thunderstorm and Not Snow

I am ok with grey and chill, as long as it involves a perfect Spring thunderstorm in the morning. I have been having a really hard time sleeping lately and this grey, cold, damp weather helped me sleep like a baby. It is not helping me get through the rest of today, but it gave me a good start.

We have some exciting upcoming projects and happenings, but they seem to never come. Spring is dragging her feet, which makes everything seem so far away. I finally got my hands on some local ranunculus that ended up being perfect little things, duh. Thanks to my friend Jeanie. She amazes me and inspires me all the time. Looking forward to hopefully seeing her soon. It's been to long.

This weekend I am hosting a lunch for some woman that totally inspire me and have been feverously trying to figure out what to cook. I have to stay One Part Plant... which can be hard for me, because I eat everything.. almost. Cheese, grapes and wine I could live off of forever, but it wouldn't be a very healthy existence. Thanks to my friend Jessica it will be at least a healthy weekend.

I have to watch what I eat now which has never been anything that I am good at. Seth and I are expecting our first baby in August. I never really thought that this day would come but it has and it feels so bold and matter of fact. It's exciting to wonder who this little person is, what he/she likes to do, eat, watch, listen to. I used to be afraid of kids and lord help me I am still afraid of birth and everything that is part of it. But now there is nothing I can do to get around it. It will happen and we will have a new amazing human at our dinner table.

 I only know of a few other florists, the ever so talented Sarah Winward and my friend and amazing flower girl Meg Catherine, who have cute as a button kids and I was at first afraid, what about Foxglove? But then I look around and see so many mothers that are kicking ass at their jobs, passions and families and this brings me to the conclusion that it will only enhance Foxglove. It really is a miracle, like holy shit! My body can make a human? That's crazy cool.

I wonder if he/she will like flowers... could they be someone that could run this joint someday, after I am beat up from all the years of shlepping flowers from one place to the other? If not, it's ok.

There is a feeling of being trapped inside lately. It's something I think all of use are struggling with right now in Chicago. These are elevated by the sad state of the weather, but looking at peoples flower farms and bright sunny arrangements, fields of lush wide open land and mountains is a tease and destroys my perception of Chicago just a little bit. I just bought a new lens for my camera and decided to test it out on the studio and realized  I need to get outside. It's time to find my own mountains and fields of flowers. Soon enough, I know, but the ants are in my pants.

Time to go eat one of those donuts that the Rent the Runway peeps left behind. I am real good at this healthy eating thing.

It's Already April

You guys, it's been crazy how long it has been since I posted here. For that I apologies. I need to get better at keeping up here. I love this space and find that it always gets pushed to the background.
I am hoping with a few changes I will have more time to write here.

In the meantime things are always moving for us. We hired our lovely Ali Summers a few months back. Super excited to have a new teammate that is going to help grow the business and keep us moving strong. I got to a point where everything was just to much and as most who run their own business, we can't do it all. Ali emailed at the right time and boom, she has been a dream to have and I am lucky to have someone that will be able to hopefully run this baby like a well oiled machine!

We are working with the online retail spot Strolby to get our curated products out into the world a bit more. They contacted us awhile back about being part of their Chicago branch and we were super excited. Especially after we saw all the great people and shops we would be in company with! You can still shop at our Apothecary + Supply. But Strolby is also a great way to bundle lot's of gifts together for one big shop attack.

We have a new product that we are SUPER excited about. My friend Laura from Gilt City introduced me to Cocovit and I have fallen in love. 100 % pure coconut oil and she has an amazing story behind where this oil comes from.  If you would like to pick some up head over to our shop to get some. It's a dream. And stay tuned to the shop, we have a lot of new items that will be popping up, like planters, ceramics and plant hangers!

This year I decided it would be the year where we get some more hands involved, grow the business and most of all educate myself not only in floral design, but also in the real business of running a floral studio. It is an investment, but I finally bit the bullet and will be attending The Little Flower School's Master Workshop at the end of this month. I am looking forward to spending 3 days with other like minded florists and learning from two florists that have inspired me from the very beginning. This will make our way of doing things easier on us and our clients and I couldn't ask for a better educational setting.

Photo by Sarah Ryhanen

Plus I get to stay on this amazing small goat and chicken farm, while attending the workshop in the Hudson Valley area. I mean, cute goats and a 100 year old farm house, sounds good to me. 

I am going to make a more conscious effort to keep things going on the blog. As I sit here and stare at tax stuff, knowing that I am avoiding them, by writing here. But hey, everyone needs an escape from the realities of business sometimes right?