Flower Fix

I LOVED this book. The concept of "The Flower Fix" is to work with nature, use seasonal flowers, and incorporate out-of-the box containers or personal items to bring the wilderness indoors. Although guidelines are given to replicate the designs in the book, the stunning photographs are truly inspirational for those of us who enjoy grabbing whatever seasonal flowers are growing in the meadow and making an arrangement for the home. This book inspired me to do much more with my free-form floral arrangements and gave me lots of ideas. For instance, the designer uses multiple vases of varying sizes and shapes in one arrangement for a fireplace mantel. She even uses a bathtub for one arrangement.

The photographs of "nature-led" floral arrangements are stunning, as are the mood boards and details of the arrangements. The book has a whimsical side; one materials list includes "one tabby cat." The quotes included in the text are wonderful, ranging from Gertrude Jekyll to Oscar Wilde to Richard Rohr.

I loved the philosophy of this book - using flowers and objects right under our noses to create deeply personal floral arrangements that are also in tune with nature. This book helps lead readers to a new, sustainable concept of aesthetics.

Highly recommended!!!

I loved this inspiring book of beautiful floral creativity. An eclectic mix of ideas create a wonderful array of arrangements but not in the usual way. There do not appear to be any boundaries for these ideas, these are not all formal arrangements and they are quite stunning. I would be delighted to have any of them in my home, flowers in the bath might prove a little impractical though!
In two parts: 1. The arrangements and 2. Basic skills. There are a total of twenty six projects which cover all seasons. I particularly enjoyed the quotes that went with each arrangement. The photos and instructions are clear and guide you through the creative process.. Not only a great book to inspire, but a lovely coffee table book to cheer you up on a rainy day. Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher, White Lion Publishing for an ARC.

Recently had the chance to read an ARC of The Flower Fix by Anna Potter, @swallowsanddamsons 💐. I’m not giving this book my normal review since it’s more of an informational manual on floral design, but I will say that this is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever gotten to read. Potter’s text is minimal but succinct and well written, giving all the details that a burgeoning floral designer could want, but leaving the main focus of the book to be on how-to’s and visuals. The book is filled with the most gorgeous images (look at her account to see what I mean), and includes select nature-inspired poetry and an illustrated beginner’s appendix at the end. Even if you aren’t an aspiring floral artist this book is 10/10 definitely worth your while to see.

This is a stunningly beautiful book. The photographs are sharp, clear and very creative.

The book itself is set in to projects, each with a list of the flowers, leaves and equipment needed to make an arrangement. These range from small to large bath sized arrangements and formal and informal. Step by step instructions and lovely pictures to illustrate each one. A flower arranging course in a book.

I have to say; all those arrangments are just so pretty!

I really enjoyed going through this, looking at the various arrangments. However, I very quickly realised that this craft is not for me. At all.

Favourite part is probably the "basic skills", and also the glossary of flowers is a pretty handy thing.

Such an interesting book. I’m not sure what I was expecting. It is a lot of things in one. I can’t imagine that everything will appeal to everyone.

Editorial - The writing is what I enjoyed. Potter sprinkles in well-coordinated quotes, book references and historical points.

Creativity - I feel like much of Potter’s editorial is encouraging the reader to be creative. It is because of that approach that I am perplexed that she provides a shopping list for each arrangement. I can truly appreciate all of her arrangements, and I am inspired by them. However, I can’t imagine repeating any of them.

Arrangements - As stated above, the floral arrangements are inspiring. My arrangements seem to include a handful of flower types, with one flower type becoming the star of the show. Potter’s arrangements have so many more dimensions. And while some arrangements may have a star, the effect is much more subtle.

Basic Skills - As much as I didn’t see the need for instructions to recreate each arrangement, I love part 2 of the book outlining ‘basic skills.’ It contains a practical approach to many of the fundamentals to flower arranging that the average flower admirer never sees. I felt like Potter was letting me in on some trade secrets.

This book is fascinating and very useful if you want to learn how to arrange flowers.
I loved the explanations and the beautiful pictures.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley, all opinions are mine

Such a beautiful book and beautifully illustrated! I love flowers and always have flowers on display in various parts of my home. I am not so good at putting a display together as much as i do try. Having read this book, it makes it all look so easy and hopefully i can get some sort of resemblance to what i see in this book. This is a must have book for anyone who enjoys flower arranging. Recommended.

My thanks to Netgalley and the Publishers for my copy. This is my honest review, freely given.

What an exquisite book. The flower displays are breathtaking, and maybe a little out of my skill set but they are beautiful to look at. Very inspirational. I love how all the details of each flower are listed, down to numbers, twine, scissors etc. When I do attempt my first arrangement, I’ll have everything I need.thank you. I truly beautiful experience flicking through the pages admiring the glory of nature.

I confess to be a person that just sticks anything plant-like willy-nilly into any container. So I was very glad to get my greenish fingers onto a book that would teach me some mindfulness when it comes to flower arranging. I also dislike “traditional” rigid and pompous flower arrangements, where the poor flowers are being coerced into a regimented ostentaciousness. This book fitted perfectly into what I was looking for: modern looking compositions shown in room settings, dotted with inspirational quotes, literary references and musings. It embraces the Japanese concept of “ma” (negative space) in an arrangement. Plenty of close-ups and instructional images to help the novice and expert alike. Every project is prefaced by the author’s reasoning about her particular approach and the projects vary from small mantelpiece arrangements to room-size installations.
Whilst detailed instructions are given, there is still left enough room for necessary substitutions and creativity.
Definite coffee-table appeal!

Fabulous book on modern floral arrangements and installations inspired by nature and flower lore. Pitted throughout with wonderful literary quotes the book contains 26 projects to get you started. The gorgeous photography will inspire you to explore your own floral creativity and build your own permanent structures for your home. You may even be inclined to take the authors advice and like the changing seasons watch the fading floral blossoms.

The Flower Fix is a new tutorial and style book for flower arranging in the home setting. Author Anna Potter is the owner of Sheffield floral boutique Swallows and Damsons. Due out 30th May 2019 from Quarto on their White Lion imprint, it's 208 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.

The author has an art and design background and it shows. There are no cookie-cutter bland arrangements here. They're beautiful, well curated, and in a number of styles. The tutorials are very specific and include materials lists which include the flowers and species used. These are -not- all easily sourced. To recreate the arrangements from the book, the reader must either live in an area with a large flower market and/or be a keen gardener with a large cutting garden. Even so, some materials will need to be sourced elsewhere since the growing conditions for the items used in the arrangements run the gamut from temperate to tropical. The arrangements themselves run the gamut from traditional to avant garde. The author's sense of color is flawless. There are arrangements here which would look perfectly at home painted into a renaissance masterpiece. They're arranged thematically. The ebook version includes an interactive table of contents and index. I especially enjoyed the chapter heading quotes. They're also very well curated with an eclectic mix of artists, philosophers, and cultural icons included.

So many of us today live in relatively sterile surroundings, boxed in and with very little contact with the natural world. This book allows the reader to get a dose of nature up close as well as providing an outlet for creativity. There also seem to be very few modern books written about flower arrangement and the cut flower aesthetic. This book fills that niche quite well. Even if the reader isn't planning on recreating the arrangements in the tutorials identically, there's a lot of material here which can be adapted to the reader's purpose and available materials.

The weakest element of the entire book for me was the cover which (to me) looks cluttered and chaotic. The black anthuriums used in the cover arrangements are darned cool though.

Four stars.

I will never be able to arrange flowers as Mrs. Potter does, but this book was good for my eyes and also it was full of very nice sentences from famous author, so I really enjoyed it.

Non saró mai capace di sistemare i fiori come fa l'autrice, ma questo libro é stato un balsamo per gli occhi ed un piacere da leggere per via delle frasi tratte dalle opere di famosi autori che accompagnavano le bellissime foto, quindi devo dire che mi é proprio piaciuto.

THANKS NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!

Really pretty photos, very interesting to look at. I think this would be really fun to flip through in paper form while sitting in your garden.

What I really appreciated most about this book was the stunning shots of the creative arrangements that Anna has put together. It really is a visual feast. The little anecdotes in each section were also charming and I really liked the origin stories for the naming of the plants and flowers. My one issue with the book is that these are not easy to recreate arrangements. One uses a bathtub, another is twisted around a pole hung from the ceiling, while a third employs an entire wall.

The Flower Fix by Anna Potter is crammed with numerous floral arrangement ideas that should spark the creative juices when it comes to arranging flowers. The two things I really liked about Potter's book was the Basic Skills and Glossary of Flowers chapters. In the basic skills chapter the author explains how to create frames such as a free-standing or wreath structure to use in floral arranging. In the Glossary of Flowers chapter the author tells about various flowers including the length of time for their use.

Recommend.

Review written after downloading a galley from NetGalley.

This book is heartbreaking gorgeous. It reads like a diary/cookbook/novel all in one. Can’t recommend it enough.

Thanks to #NetGalley, I had an advanced PDF to read and review.

*All opinions are my own and I was not required to post a positive review. *

I recieved an electronic version of this book for my honest review.

I really enjoyed The Flower Fix. The photographs were stunning. I have always dabbled in flower design. This book gives plenty of fresh and new ideas. I highly recommend The Flower Fix to those who enjoy flower arrangements as well as to those DIY'ers who want to add some pizzazz to their spaces.

Whilst the flower arrangement projects are lovely, what I really like about this book is the easy going and informative style of writing, decorating and thinking behind the projects.
I enjoyed the adventure into the colour and use of the seasons, and the thinking outside the square aspect of arranging the follows
There are detailed information on copying the arrangements in the book, but the book is more than this.

The Flower Fix is an inspirational book, with both actual flower arrangements and some basic skills that could be okay to know. The book had great tutorials and I liked the touch of using seasonal flowers. An added bonus was the quotes.

I am amazed that this book maintained my interest and was a constant delight whenever I picked it up.
I would never have imaged this kind of book could have stimulated my sense of nature and the environment. Helped me to focus on life and death, ethereal things, literature and Dutch masterpieces.
I have gained a sense of place, structure, design and presentation.
Now if the author was baking cakes and the book contained all the practicalities from ingredients, cooking methods and mouth-watering pictures I could understand why I had fallen in love with them and would want to see flour on her nose and taste her chocolate cake fresh from the oven.
I fail to comprehend why Anna has so bewitched me with a different type of flour and placed me under her spell with evergreens and foraged foliage with recourse to mistletoe or wine.
This is a lovely book that makes the garage bouquets as redundant as packet mix buns.
Anna is a designer first and foremost with an eye for colour and a creative gene few possess. Yet this book will inspire the most incompetent of would-be flower arrangers to not only see but also believe.
With each wonderfully illustrated arrangement, floral design or wreath the author takes us through the process. With a poem, literary quote or passage we follow her inspiration. How the flowers, containers, colour and most surprisingly the placement comes together. With throw away comments about the names of the blooms, Japanese culture or her own inspiration we learn so much. We quickly learn nothing is wasted and everything from flowers to her words recorded are well chosen. She is a natural communicator and teacher, generously sharing her thoughts and mistakes. She spends time detailing the ingredients, the method, the skills needed to bring it all together. The captured images in the photographs bring the still life to a vivid picture of floral delight. You can almost smell the blooms but you see it in it’s setting and have individual processes or single flower pictured independently.
She takes us through this again and again. Highlighting seasons, colours, the visual space and explaining that any display is a living testament to nature and resonates both new life and decay.
Just when you could keep reading and seeking out her latest project the book draws to a close with the most important elements. Having been inspired by words and pictures we now are provided the motivation and belief we too can achieve.
A glossary of terms and techniques and list of flowers and suitable alternatives. What to use when and where. How to buy, collect, gather and forage. Why sustainability is all about in season rather than gathering just figure 0 model stems off the florist’s catwalk.
I loved this book. I’m not aware of any of the arrangements were completely edible but I know how to prepare old man’s beard without being poisoned and other aspects about the most unusual blossoms and flowers.
This would make an ideal gift. While a cook book could not save a starving man this book will inspire, delight and enable the most humble of people to see beauty and display it within their homes.

A very informative book I found myself learning so much with this reading.. really well categorised, this means easy to find randomly things if ever want to go back for something in specific, and the writing its really easy to understand... love it

4.5 stars.

This is my first time reading on flower arrangement though I had some interest after seeing them in shows. Reading this book was a joy and the arrangements the author made and showed in the book were really pretty. I love that the author made a lot of emphasis to be creative and don't let anything be a barrier on one's creativity. I also liked the quotes, mood boards (though not in every arrangements) and inspirations in each arrangements. Few of the arrangements were big but they looked so beautiful. The photography in itself was an art.

The only downside I see for this book is that the basic skills is close to the end of the book instead of the beginning but otherwise everything else was great.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with the digital copy for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book very much - floristry is a relaxing hobby and I loved the photos and clear instructions - it was inspiring and motivated me to be more creative in my floral designs

The Flower Fix is a beautiful book for sure. The photography is gorgeous and the copy and quotes are very inspirational but, the flowers and arrangements are very classical, not comparable with the image on the cover at all. They feel much more like flower arrangements from old paintings. It might become a new trend but, I personally prefer a more minimalistic approach.

Besides, even in a floral country like the Netherlands, where I live the flowers used are not easy to purchase. Creating bouquets and wraths like these will quickly add up.