Hello flower lovers! Welcome to my very first newsletter and a very magical midsummer week.

 

Vines are beginning to creep along pathways and night flowers are opening to warm breezes. The scent on the air is no longer the crisp newness of Spring, but the sensuous, murky delight of long days under the hot sun slipping into evenings in the garden under the stars. Every flower could be a fairy, every leaf hiding one of the wee folk. I just bought a second-hand fire table for my garden and I can’t wait to put it to good use! Roasted marshmallows and a spot of whiskey for me, please!

This time of year always makes me feel nostalgic. It was on a June solstice that I was walking down my mother's rose garden path to my groom, eating pink cake, and dancing under Japanese lanterns at my Midsummer Night’s Dream wedding.

This image is the same spot as in the photo above! The roses (and we) have grown!

One of my theater professors made my cake. I said “light pink. Not like Pepto Bismol.” He heard, “Like Pepto Bismol!”

But in the end, isn’t it perfect? 

In my Garden

Over the last couple of weeks I have been turning my once meadow of a back yard into a formal parterre. (A fancy word I’m using for what is basically just flower boxes arranged around a water feature. (More fancy words I’m using for what is basically just a bird bath.)). It has been quite the project, and there will be more on that in future, but all that to say: I have blooms bursting from the seams!  It’s been giving me ideas for summery flower crowns and flower art! Aaand...

A Fairy cocktail!

With plum, rose, elderflower and thistle.

The Recipe

3oz plum sake (Tozai Blossom of Peace)

3oz elderflower and rose lemonade (Belvoir farm)

2oz sparkling water (watermelon lacroix)

1oz milk thistle iced tea (Superb Herb Tea, with orange peel and grapefruit flavor)

Garnish with lychee, black plum, and a fairy fuchsia!

And don’t forget to sprinkle with pixie dust! (edible glitter)

This fairy cocktail is the perfect summery drink for a midsummer afternoon soirée. Tart and sweet from the plum sake and elderflower rose lemonade, and cut with a little bit of earthy thistle tea. Any of the elements can be added to give it the right amount of each flavor that you desire. Want a little less rose? Add watermelon lacroix or the sparkling water of your choice. Want more sweetness? Add more sake! Plum evokes sugarplum fairies dancing in your dreams, rose and thistle make me think of garden fairies wearing dresses made of petals, and lychee looks like something a fairy would love to make a helmet out of! And the piece de resistance is my “Snow Fairy” fuchsia flying over the garnish. In fact, she inspired this entire drink!

For a little walk down memory lane, here are eight of my favorite

Midsummer Crowns:

Yarrow, Mallow, Bell flower, Lavender and poppies! These all came from a hummingbird mix my boys and I scattered when they were little. 

Russian Sage and Globe thistle! Globe thistles always give me a moody romantic sort of je ne sais quoi. 

Forget me nots, California poppies, columbine, dandelion, and one giant pink poppy.

Morning Glory. By the time I got the makeup to look like the painting I was emulating this flower lost all its glory.but it seemed to fit! 

Foxglove, Campanula, feverfew, and what was probably my last Jude the Obscure rose! (It smelled like sugary lemon!)

Evelyn rose (the rose Crabtree and Evelyn used to use for their scents!) and Princess Victoria Louise poppy. These two bloom right next to each other in my garden and it’s like two ladies accidentally wore the same outfit to the party.

St John’s Wort, Dutch clover, petunia, honeysuckle, Golden Wings rose, (a couple other roses I don’t have the names of off the top of my head), and butterfly lavender. This was a bee themed crown (stripes and yellow!) and the lavender was the bee!

Marie Antoinette inspired! Roses from my mom’s garden, lilacs from mine, and a crown of Bellis daisies.

Current Events

This Thursday I’ll be at Cascadia Art Gallery demonstrating my flower art for the Edmonds Art Walk. If you live in the area, come and make a flower butterfly with me and say hi!

In the press

I am in the Flora and Fauna issue of Enchanted Magazine! It’s filled to the brim with all my favorite things. I am pinching myself that I got to be a part of so much fairy magic! A perfect June treat.

If you’re getting this email you asked to be added to my mail list when you bought one of my prints or you subscribed via my instagram. If this isn’t something you’d like to see again, feel free to unsubscribe. I plan to use this newsletter as a way of connecting more in depth with my readers, tell you little goings-ons, let you in on some of my favorite things, share floral tid bits, and give updates on new books and art. And of course, plenty of nonsensical magical fairy beauty. Someone recently said I achieved “gossamer lightness” in something I did and I thought that is a perfect way to describe how I’d like my newsletter to be. A gentle, glimmering, touch of lightness in your email.

Thank you for reading! As a welcome to my new venture, use discount code FLORAMAIL to receive 30% off anything in my shop! Floraforager.com

Cheers, m’dears!

Bridget

P.S You simply must try this chocolate!