So after becoming an (even more so) prolific Instagram user more recently after setting up my @the.blonde.blog page and my blog I have started to notice a pattern in my ‘liking’ habits. I’ve tended to favour gorgeously decorated homes, bright colourful posts (especially of the rainbow houses of my town Bristol), cute dogs (argh I want one!), fashion and of course mouthwatering food! More recently though I’ve spotted a pattern in the number of posts I’ve adored that contain flowers. Now I’m not sure if it’s just the longing for Spring/Summer or it’s a sign of maturity (read: growing old) but I can’t get enough of them! I’m loving seeing everyone’s cheerful daffs, drooping but delightful tulips and of course the recent Valentine’s Day bouquets were to die for! So when I saw that one of my favourite clothing brands Boden were teaming up with the bouquet home delivery company Bloom & Wild to host a nationwide tour I couldn’t resist signing up!
The perfect partnership of Boden and Bloom & Wild were stopping off at four cities around the country and luckily Bristol was one of them (another reason why my city is awesome!). I hastily sent a message to one of my best girl friends, Kirsty, who I knew would jump at the chance of blooms and shopping the new Spring/Summer Boden collection combined! Luckily she was just as excited as I was and before I knew it I was at the online checkout purchasing two tickets to a bouquet workshop – blooming marvellous!
Friday evening arrived and we made our way to Cabot Circus. You couldn’t miss the petal-powered huge green bus with it’s floral decorations and oh so familiar Boden script. We hurried on board and found ourselves handed a bottle of Bloom Rose Lemonade Gin and a bucket full of stems. After being welcomed by our workshop instructor we began to select the greenery and blooms from our bucket and place them carefully together to arrange a bouquet. As I busied away selecting the correct number of each piece of foliage or flower our instructor kept us right on track ensuring the special ‘Johnnie’ (named after the Boden creator himself) bouquet was taking shape.
After about 30 minutes of piecing together each stem we then set about arranging them into a bouquet style, carefully selecting a piece of green foliage and then one of the beautiful pink, yellow and purple coloured flowers. In our bouquet we were told we were using ageratum, snapdragons and wildflower foliage to create the ultimate Spring feast for the eyes. I think you’ll agree the finished product was certainly impressive (and I can report rather heavy!).
Once we had completed the project we wrapped our bouquets carefully in an opaque cellophane before placing them into a yellow gift bag to carry them home safely. We were also treated to the new Boden catalogue (I want to buy literally everything in there…) along with a 20% discount code that could be used online.
Both my friend Kirsty and I had a fabulous evening with the lovely Boden team and the other ladies who attended the workshop. I would certainly hasten to book a similar experience with them again – it was informative and fun and a perfect way to spend a girly Friday evening. The blooms are lasting so well and look delightful placed in my fireplace – although such a huge bouquet has been pretty thirsty (I think being the last workshop of the day we used a few extra stems…but shh, don’t tell anyone!).
On a side note I’ve also made use of my scrummy Bloom Gin – it was the ideal celebration for reaching 1000 Instagram followers this week -yey – thanks lovely folks!
Thanks so much also to Boden and Bloom & Wild – I’m sure I’ll be purchasing from you again very soon! If you would like to purchase the limited edition ‘Johnny’ bouquet you can do so at Bloom & Wild and head over to Boden to check out their new season collection.
The Blonde x
