I’ve always been obsessed with flowers-drawing them, buying them, photographing them, etc. One of the reasons, I enjoyed living in Hawaii so much was the abundance of gorgeous blooms. Fuchsia Bougainvillea on the church steps, red and yellow hibiscus outside my classroom, pink tinged plumeria lining the sidewalks, and stark white gardenia in the neighbor’s yard were always just around the corner. Of course,  the hundreds of leis given to graduates always capped the end of the school year perfectly.

Moving to DC meant a more restrained and manicured landscape but Capitol Hill boasts the US Botanical Garden and Bartholdi Park which are beautiful in their own right. Gleaming white marble columns pair well with bright flower beds.

Since we bought our house in December and had a daunting amount of renovation to do, the priority was gutting the house and putting it back together for the first year. Flowers aren’t a priority when you don’t have a couch (Wayfair for the win) or furniture.

This summer, we begun the Herculean task of buying and planting bushes and flowers in the courtyard area in the rear of the house. I’ll save that for another day but it is coming along quite nicely.

Along with that, I have embarked on a new hobby of arranging flowers. I had never really thought about it before but decided to create an arrangement for our Christmas Soiree (i.e. housewarming party for my huge family in our tiny house).

That led to designing flowers for my Grandmother’s surprise party in March which turned out pretty well.

At the time , I was an event planner which led to centerpiece needs for various functions which provided an outlet (that didn’t require spending my own money).

Statice Floral held a pop up flowers shop at the L at Larkin’s on Mother’s Day weekend which was a blast. Chris was less than thrilled but faithfully came along for the ride.

Chris bought me a couple of bouquets for my birthday this month. Arranging the flowers and taking pictures of the finished product was a gift in itself.

Holloway’s tend to celebrate their birthdays all month-long. As the oldest grandchild, I gladly plan to continue that tradition. To that end, I went by Fresh Market to indulge my habit. I tend to go for pinks but I decided to go tropical this time. Check out the results below! ”

“Someone” says that the arrangement is bigger than our house but as they say “haters gonna hate.”