Lilac Journey

I was presented with a project to do lilacs as a gift to someone special. Whenever I’m presented with a new flower to make, I love the process of doing the research of how big is the flower, the breakdown of the flower, and any other information about the flower, like the different colors they come in and what the leaves look like. Since we moved to our home, I had noticed that we had lilacs that grew on one side of the house, but at that time, I had no idea that my life would take such a turn from being a corporate fulltime worker to creating floral art. So, no mind was paid to those lilacs. Also, they looked so unachievable to make, that when I did start my paper flower journey, still no mind was paid to those beautiful lilacs.

                Since I’ve started making flowers, naturally, I’ve become more comfortable and open minded to trying new techniques and finding other ways to make flowers. So, here I was, with lilacs to create, three of them. When I started the research, it was still early Spring 2020. No lilacs to be seen at the side of my house. I was left with just my research, google images to go by, and my imagination. It’s a lot easier to create a template from the real thing. To be honest, doing the research is also fun to do. It becomes personal, learning what each part of the flower is, the names of each part, and what purpose it has. But, luckily, there were leftover dried lilac stems still attached to the tree outside my house. I used this skeleton to document the structure of the flower itself. I counted each group of flowers in each section and was, to be honest, afraid of what I just got myself into. Yikes!

                Guess what! Even though the number of tiny flowers was scary, I was up for the challenge. This was something I really wanted to do because it was a brand-new level of flower making for me. The flowers had purpose, for someone special.

                Spring 2020 will forever be remembered as a strange time in our lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The world, with the exception of essential workers, were required to stay home to help stop the spread of this horrible virus. There were a lot of tasks on my plate: homeschooling my toddler, keeping on top of my 11-year-old with his e-learning and Taekwondo, house chores and cooking, a dog to walk, exercising, and my flowers. My amazing hubby was so busy with his own work, that I was pretty much alone handling everything else during the work week. But hey, I did it. I’ve learned a lot from this time. Hard work, dedication, passion, control, patience, resilience, and love. These lilacs will remind me of all these words and I’m proud to have been their creator. Three beautiful lilacs; purple, pink and white. How gorgeous they turned out and worth every bit of my time.