Hello Cocoa Daisy friends, Are you drawn to flowers? Morgan Harper Nichols notes, "perhaps the reason you are drawn to flowers is not only for their outer beauty, but because they remind you beautiful things will bloom after the longest seasons of waiting." Quite profound when you think about life at this time in history. We wanted to share creative ways to use our Backyard Blooms collection to document the flowers in your life, flowers you may have purchased, grown, or found on a hike or walk. A reminder that life will bloom again after the long season of uncertainty we are currently navigating. Three of our wonderful DT members have designed gorgeous one-of-a-kind documentation of the flowers in their lives. We hope you enjoy these ideas and that they inspire you to create your own kind of flower journal. Let's begin with Kristine's memory planner layout. "The plants on my back deck are finally growing and blooming beautifully, and it’s such a lovely coincidence that this month’s kits are full of beautiful blooms!" "I used a ton of the floral die cuts to make a frame for my journaling on the left side, and made a photo collage with some floral accents on the right. The peel and stick element of the die cuts made it so easy to put them down - no fuss, no muss!" "I kept this layout super simple, with some washi on the top and bottom and a few word banners; lots of white space lets the flowers and die cuts really shine." Kristine's flower story is a bit of uncomplicated loveliness! We love her photo collage and flower wreath too. Next we have a lovely wildflower journal by Odessa. "Backyard Blooms is one of my favourite Cocoa Daisy kits ever! It’s so bold and summery. I’ve become pretty obsessed with wildflowers this summer and decided to use the Simple Dori from the Traveler’s Notebook Kit to make a little flower journal." "I started by making the Simple Dori a little smaller - I trimmed 1 inch off the top and 1 1/2 inches off the bottom. I wanted it to feel more like a pocket notebook. There were only a couple of text designs in the Dori that didn’t look good after but I just used some of the extra papers to cover that up. For the cover I used the black and white patterned insert that was behind the sticker sheets this month. I cut it to fit and added a big die cut from the Planner Kit. Simple and cute! On the inside cover I used the brush alpha stickers from the Memory Keeping Sticker Kit for the title along with a little phrase sticker. The white clips that came in the Traveler’s Notebook kit this month are so handy!" "I then went through all my photos and sorted them by date and made sure that I had figured out what was in the picture. I used a bunch of the planner tabs along the side to note the different locations the pictures came from. I went through the die cuts and stickers from all of my Backyard Blooms kits and pulled out everything that looked like a label that I could write the names of the flower on. While I was doing this I also pulled out other flat embellishments that were cute." "The pages themselves are pretty simple. A 3x3 photo of a flower with a label identifying it and the date it was taken stamped. I first went though and stuck in all the pictures and then labels to go with them. Once that was done I went back through with washi and stickers and die cuts to do some simple embellishing." "I really like how it turned out and I hope to keep it up through the summer! Picking up a wildflower guide was a smart decision, I love bringing it along on camping trips to figure out what’s around us. I hope you enjoyed this peek in my flower journal!" Wow, what an amazing flower journal! Odessa has a wonderful eye for color and thinking outside the box. Our final design is a 12x12 layout from Audrey and she has a process video too. "Summer time to me means time on my porch in my beautiful garden with all the flowers, so of course, I documented all of my garden in a 12x12 scrapbook journal. You can find a full process video here and a few tips for my 12x12 flower journal." "I took pictures of my flowers and in Photoshop put them in three different sized circles and punched them out. I placed them around the page. To add dimension, I used pop dots to raise some and not others. I kept the photos on the left side of the page so I had space for journaling on the right." "I used the awesome puffy stickers for my title 'Flower Journal.' These stickers are some of my most favorite items that Cocoa Daisy puts out. I also used the 'Summer 2020' title sticker to date my journal. Notice how I let the title expand into the journalling area. This helps to break up the page and bring the entire layout together." "I scattered die cuts, puffy stickers and word label stickers throughout the flowers. I intentionally chose sentiments that described my flower journal. The peel and stick of the die cuts made my process so easy. And, the word label stickers are perfectly suited with sayings pertinent to this season. This is one of the many things I love about Cocoa Daisy. I am so pleased with how this layout came together." Audrey's one page journal with all the flowers is so clever and pretty. We love the way Audrey created her unique flower journal in a traditional 12x12 size. We'd love for you to share your ideas for documenting the flowers in your life. Please tag @cocoa_daisy on social media or share with us in our private facebook group. Take care and be well! ~Robin