As we all know and love, flowers are a living medium—a medium with a beginning, middle, and eventual end. Our living medium celebrates love, loss, romance, happiness, friendship, reaching achievements, hitting milestones, and more. While the living art we create makes personal moments more special and more memorable, it eventually dies and is tossed away. At best, it is hung to dry, to become something moderately resembling what it once was.

But maybe our creations and art can live on, even after the moment (and the flowers) have passed.

Over the past few months, we have all been looking for new ways to help our businesses bud into new avenues and bloom without our regular weddings and events. We’re in a creative line of work that requires us to think outside of the box—and this season in the floral industry is no exception.

As I looked for ways to shift my floral business, I began to wonder what other communities I could be part of outside of our fabulous floral, event, and photography community. I began to embrace my daily floral creations as living art, and every time a client placed an order, it felt like a very personal, commissioned piece of work. Each design element had a deliberate thought process behind it. Like a painting. It was with this aha moment that led me to ask myself some questions:

• What if I didn’t just identify as a floral designer, but also as an artist?

• What would that mean for me, my work, and who I talk to?

• What doors could begin to open if I connect with artists of different mediums?

• How could I collaborate with them to grow?

• Is there a way to preserve not just the living art I create, but also the moments that the designs are made for?

And so the roots were planted—and that tiny idea of being a floral artist grew into an all-new initiative called Canvassed.

I spent the past month collaborating with an eclectic collection of five Canadian artists of different styles and backgrounds. This collaboration was to interpret my floral designs into lasting works of art—as a new offering for clients to order in tandem with fresh floral designs. Clients can browse the commissioned artists on my website and place orders for both floral design and companion artwork in one simple form.

The flowers delivered to celebrate a fiftieth wedding anniversary, a graduation, or surviving cancer can now last a lifetime with an artistic expression created by another fellow artist.

Just by thinking about what I do as a floral designer a little bit differently led to Canvassed, and that has started me down a very exciting new path. Not only can I offer my clients something unique—preservation of memories—I am now connected to five different artists and their communities. I am getting to know them as individuals: what they like to do, the music they listen to, the people/places/things that inspire them.

These new relationships, and what I’m learning from these incredibly talented artists, will be invaluable in ways I can’t even begin to forecast—and that excites me!

As you work on creative ideas for your business and different avenues to inspire more work, look around at the different people in your community and assess if your business aligns with them in ways you wouldn’t have noticed before. Connecting and collaborating with different people outside of our regular channels can be extremely rewarding!

But it’s also hard work.

I have included a few helpful guiding principles if you decide to get creative with collaborations:

1. Explore how you identify and talk about your work. Once you understand your work more deeply, you can begin to make creative correlations with others you usually wouldn’t have thought about. This will be where you discover your new idea.

2. Think through and write down your new idea and structure thoroughly, from the perspective of the client, partner, and your business. This helps when approaching prospective partners. The more you have put down on paper, the more likely you are to approach the right people, and those people will take you seriously.

3. As you approach individuals, remember your idea is based on collaboration and partnership. You are providing them with a new and exciting concept, and they should also bring value to your idea and your business.

4. Once you have your collaboration idea set and partners onboard, lists are your best friends! List out what you need to do for your business and brand as well as what you will need from your partners—and make sure your lists have deadlines… or that thing you thought you’d do this year bleeds into next year.

5. Don’t underestimate the power of a contract. It protects you, your idea, and your partners. So make sure you both sign one.

6. Promotion! Tell publications about your idea and tap into your partners’ communities as you get close to launching. Your partners are just as excited to be on the new adventure with you, and they have an entire group of people you’ve never reached before!

7. Be patient and continue to work at it. There’s often a significant lag between a new idea and when clients recognize it. It’s okay for something new to take time to grow into something spectacular. Just like a flower (cute!).

We are all working hard at re-evaluating what our businesses can do right now, and getting creative in your collaborations with new communities can be the fresh water you need to grow and blossom as a business..