You may have spotted some advance copies of World of Flowers on social media this week. Colour with Claire posted one of the first unboxing videos and it made me SO HAPPY!

I don’t send books to Journalists, I send them to Colourists. I think it makes sense to have those books in the hands of those people that inspire our community (as opposed to the Book Editor at the New York Times…!).

I wanted to do something special for this launch, because World of Flowers is a special book.

 

The details make the difference!

I had this idea of the books arriving in boxes, with tissue paper and gold foil stickers and printed washi tape. Each box would contain a cluster of little parcels, each wrapped in blush pink tissue; Faber Castell Polychromo colouring pencils, a little envelope containing a trio of colouring notecards, a postcard from me and a bar of After the Rain soap made by Arran Aromatics. Isle of Arran is where my Grandparents lived and this particular scent was inspired by the fragrance of a garden after a rainstorm. It seemed to fit so perfectly with the story of the book.

 

Everything was going well. I’d hand embellished all the books, written all the postcards and now I was wrapping! I spritzed each box with Jo Malone’s Honey Suckle and Davana – I imagined the floral scent floating out the box as it was unwrapped, creating a glorious perfume.

 

The boxes were designed to have my botanical print on the inside, so the pattern would be a surprise when it was opened. A standard brown box would arrive in the mail, but inside, an inky floral surprise! Also, those shipping stickers and customs paperwork are UGLY – I didn’t want them plastered all over the pretty pattern!

 

When it all went a bit wrong…

I assembled and packed 70 boxes by hand (did you see the video I posted on Instagram?!) Only once I finished the last box, did I notice the corners seemed a bit…squishy? Sort of flimsy, not quite as rigid as I would have expected. My heart sunk as I realised the boxes had been printed inside out. The pattern had been printed on the outside, meaning I had 70 inside out boxes sitting on my desk.

Possibly the most boring picture I have ever posted – but oh so important! The box on the left is correctly assembled, the one of the right, in ‘inside out’. You can see my predicament…! 

 

I wondered what to do. Would they be ok inside out? Would they be strong enough? Would the books get bumped? Would the packages survive their journey around the world? It was too risky.

 

I grabbed a scalpel and began to open the boxes…

And it may have taken double the time to re-pack them all, but it was worth it.

 

Win a World of Flowers Box!

Want your very own World of Flowers Box with all these inky goodies?! Well you are in luck! I have 1 left to give-away!

Make sure you are signed up to my newsletter to find out how to win one next week, when World of Flowers finally launches!