Have you ever reached into the back of your closet only to find an unnecessarily abandoned treasure? Maybe a blouse with the tags still on it? Your old easel from art class?
For me, that was erinnking.com. My dad purchased the domain as gift for me over ten years ago during the dinosaur age of the internet. He patiently parked the domain, waiting for the day I would claim it and do something about it.
I’ve been considering what a personal blog might look like for a long time. I wanted to focus on a topic that wasn’t oversaturated (does the world really need another fashion blog?) but also one I could sustain. One of my first ideas was to create an educational blog for recent graduates that focused on personal branding. I wanted to guide them towards conversations around identity and how that identity would be integrated into the workplace.
After spending the summer of ‘18 preparing to launch, I could sense that I was beginning to lose steam on the idea shortly after I became engaged. I was suddenly spending most of what little free time I had making wedding plans, which felt infinitely captivating in comparison. I have since decided to shift creatively more towards the act of making things, particularly pretty things that fit in the wedding/event world.
I recently discovered that I really love flowers. You do, too, whether you know it or not.
A Rutgers University double-blind study found that when participants were presented with a gift other than flowers, they smiled and were happy. Sometimes they would smile a “Duchenne smile,” (named after a French physician with a fondness for electrodes) or a true smile that involves the mouth, cheeks and eyes. But sometimes they would fake it, offering up a half-smile, a false (but perhaps well-meaning) affirmation. When the same participants were presented with flowers, 100 percent of them offered a Duchenne smile. “In an emotions lab, you never get a 100 percent response unless you’re dropping a snake on people, which gives you a nice 100 percent fear response” said the researcher, “But happy? No.”
The thing is flowers seem riddled with baggage in the present zeitgeist. They are considered an indulgence outside of daily enjoyment, associated with weddings, funerals, or the tacky corsage you wore to high school prom. For something so pure, so strikingly beautiful with next-to-no assistance, something that inspires the Duchenne smile for crying out loud - what a shame!
In some tiny way, I hope to change that. This blog is all about wedding projects but my biggest focus is on flowers for now- both in the context of a big event like a wedding but also daily enjoyment.
Thanks for stopping by!