Kelly Perry - 00:00 - You are listening to the team flower podcast where we talk about flowers and the people who have dedicated their lives to sharing them with the world. Today on the podcast we have Heather Page, a floral designer with Academy Florists in Winnipeg, Manitoba for instagram feed. @Heather_page is filled with beautiful images that reflect her personality, so much rich saw pooled welcome in grace. In this podcast you'll hear about what a day in the life of a floral designer at a flower shop looks like. You'll learn about Heather's divine philosophy, style, and progression of the years, and how to take great photos for your shop on instagram and an easy craft projects to make it happen. This podcast is brought to you by team flower. We're a group of florists who are loving the world through flowers. Whether you're a professional farmer or florist getting started or just love flowers, welcome to the party. You are so welcome here. If you'd like to know when new podcast episodes are released and receive fun video tutorials and articles, sign up for our pimp our club, free this visit teamflower.org and click on free resources today on the show we have heather. Heather, it's so great to have you. 

Heather Page - 01:17 - Thank you. Kelly. This is pleasure. 

Kelly Perry - 01:20 - Oh, well, we would love to get to know you a little bit today and learn about what makes you tick and what you love about flowers. So why don't you just tell us a little bit about where you're located and what you do day to day. Uh, up in Canada. 

Heather Page - 01:36 - Alright. Um, I am a floral designer here in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which is pretty much smack in the middle of Canada. So we're on the prairies. I work at a retail flower shop called Academy Florists and I've been there for, oh my goodness, I believe it's almost 10 years now. Wow. Yeah, that's been a great place to work and grow as a designer. The thing that I liked the best about working there is the all of the designers that I get to work with because we're constantly inspired by each other and trying new things and it's nice to have a, a group of people that you can show a bowl, k two and ask for an honest opinion and we've become almost a family and it's to a point now where we're honest with each other and we can point out some little things that might help each other out with our design work. So I really value that at Academy Florists. 

Kelly Perry - 02:40 - It's really exciting to see the local flower movement taking off in Canada as well as the United States and more people using the flowers that are sourced close to them. It's very exciting. 

Heather Page - 02:51 - Absolutely, and I find we still, I mean at Academy Florists we still are importing quite a few flowers just because can't grow a lot of things here, but the seasonally available flowers kind of fill in those gaps and give you those little, just the little special additions that make your designs very different so it's great to have available. That's really neat. Well, you've been designing flowers for a long time. Tell us a little bit about your philosophy for design and sort of how maybe that's morphed or changed over the years as you've been working with flowers. It's really funny because just recently I was looking back at some old photos of my work from when I first began. I actually took commercial floristry at olds college in Alberta in 2001 and even back then I was taking photos of my work at the time. I think I started with disposable cameras and I would send them away and then I eventually got a digital camera. 

Heather Page - 03:57 - So I have memory cards and memory cards of except pretty crazy design. So I would definitely evolved over the years. I do think it's important to look back and reflect and not be so hard on yourself for some of the maybe mistakes that you've made because you definitely grow from all of that. Um, I, I just love taking photos of flowers and arrangements in particular because I can often see in the photos things that I would like to improve or just the placement or the colors. And so I feel like, um, by having social media tools like instagram, you can look back on your own work and sort of see how you're growing and changing and evolve from there. It's a, it's a nice place to put those photos and there's sort of there as an extra resource. I'll often look back on my instagram feed to say a year ago just to remind myself, okay, what flowers are coming up for, you know, I'm just seasonally to remind yourself of, of what flowers will be in season in two months because it's, it's sometimes hard to, hard to remember all of those things. 

Heather Page - 05:12 - So it's a, yeah, it's a great resource. And um, Oh yes, sorry I got off topic. But you had asked about my design philosophy and I think for me the number one thing is, is going with your gut. I think I rely on my intuition a lot and just sometimes you just know what to do and sometimes you just have to listen and pay attention to what you're doing. Um, it's obviously really important to focus on the principles and elements of design, but a lot of it I think I'm really comes from your intuition and just, especially as a creative person, you just have to let that guide you sometimes. So I think that's, that's where it all stems from for me. Yeah. 

Kelly Perry - 05:59 - Important piece for sure. And there's an element of just self awareness and confidence that you need to be able to let go a bit into truly express yourself through, through the flowers. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I would love to share a little bit about a blog post that you have done recently about creating a little styling board, um, credit. I see that published. 

Heather Page - 06:29 - When was that? Magnolia Rouge giving little feature. Oh, okay. Yeah. Perfect. 

Kelly Perry - 06:35 - Yeah, I saw that and I thought, Oh yeah, know what? We need to talk about that. And I'm just. Could you tell us a little bit about this project that you put on and I think it would be really helpful to people who are listening, maybe give them a little bit of inspiration. 

Heather Page - 06:48 - Absolutely. Um, it sort of came about very naturally here in Winnipeg. Our winters are so, so cold and you can't, there's no way you could take flowers outside to photograph them and working in a busy shop, there's really not, there's not a blank wall anywhere or any space to take a photo. So when we're trying to work with social media and sharing with the people in Winnipeg, um, what we're doing, what we're making, we have to come up with ways and places to photograph these flowers and, and to showcase them. So I always love, you know, when you find like that perfect aged plaster wall or I'm just a really neat texture space. So then I decided I wanted to make some sort of a board that we could tuck away and pull out when we need it. So that's how it all came about. And I tried a few different things first and eventually the, the technique you see in the tutorial is the one that works, so yeah, 

Kelly Perry - 07:54 - fantastic. So it's basically a board that you could make in a variety of different sizes and it's just showing you how to put that sort of plaster textured look on there and there's all kinds of different color options that are demoed in this post and you can lay them down or stand them up. There's all kinds of things. It's a very flexible type of piece that's helpful to have in the studio or just to take even with you on site to a wedding. Ah, if you just needed to take a couple of pictures on the fly. I think photographers would really love to have some of these in their tool bags as well. So I'm glad that you were kind and had that photographed and put together so that we can do it the smart way. 

Heather Page - 08:40 - Nice to have. And before I did, I actually looked on pinterest and I googled and I couldn't find anything that was quite light kit. So then after we had finished and I made them, I worked with, um, I often work with a photographer, her name is Brittany Mahood and, and we were talking about these boards and we had used them a few times and she's always wanted to shoot a tutorial and I thought this resource isn't out there, so why don't we try this. So yeah, she is kind enough to oblige and yeah, that's how it all came about. 

Kelly Perry - 09:11 - That's fantastic. Well, tell us a little bit more about springtime for you. When does that start in Canada? What are you most looking forward to? 

Heather Page - 09:21 - It's starting now. There's a few buds on the trees. Um, the evenings in Winnipeg are still very cold, so we can't really plant anything until after the May long weekend for us. So, um, yeah, the longer days are nice and I'm, I'm most looking forward to having leaves on the trees. It's very bare here. So, um, yeah, that's very exciting. And then obviously we're big fans of foraging up here, so I'm really excited to get started. So. 

Kelly Perry - 09:53 - Oh, fantastic. What kind of role do you feel at Academy Florists? Are you primarily a designer? Are you doing weddings? Are you doing every day? What's going on in the shop? 

Heather Page - 10:05 - Yeah, I'm primarily a designer. Um, I do also help customers answer the phones. I watched a ton of buckets. It's all part and parcel, but I actually feel like that's, that's why I stay and that's why I love it. I love the physical aspect. I don't mind taking all the crushed flower boxes out to the recycling bin. It's a very physical job. And um, anyone who knows me knows how much I love food. So I always say that I'm being a florist sort of allows me to eat all the food. It's a coincidence, but most florists that I know or have worked with, we all have seem to have a sweet tooth. So. So that's a problem. 

Kelly Perry - 10:50 - So what's a day in the life look like for you, being you head into the shop? Are you catching up on phone calls? Maybe there's somebody who's listening that is, um, you know, considering applying for a job in a shop or considering starting one, give us a little inside scoop on what that's like for you. 

Heather Page - 11:10 - Well, it's, it's a fairly hard work, but it's very rewarding. Um, and like I said, it is a very physical job and you're often lifting heavy things. So those are all factors to consider going into floristry well, a retail flower shop in particular. Um, yeah, so a typical day for me is like kind of get in, check out the orders and I get started right away. And um, during wedding season I'm primarily designing weddings, um, but all the other times in between there's always a holiday, there's birthdays, anniversaries, custom orders. I love custom orders and working with people to find the perfect flowers and colors for them. So, um, yeah, there's so many hats you have to, were working in a retail flower shop, which is, I think why it's exciting and every day is totally different. So I really enjoy it. 

Kelly Perry - 12:04 - Tell us a little bit about what you love about your boss and working at the flower shop that you work at, because I know there's maybe a few flower shop owners that are here that are thinking, how can I make my shop really fun place to work so that I can retain designers for 10 years like you've been working at the Academy Flores. 

Heather Page - 12:23 - One of my favorite things about her is that she, she wants us to be creative and she embraces our creativity and I feel like that's why her business is growing because there's this group of wonderful, wonderful ladies that are so passionate about what we're doing and what we're selling that I think she's open to all of our. All of our ideas and yeah, we're growing together and and it's fulfilling as a designer to be able to be creative as well as focusing on things like profit and all those kinds of things as well. But definitely that's what I value there is just being able to be myself and be creative. 

Kelly Perry - 13:05 - So good. 

Heather Page - 13:06 - She also buys us a lot of treats. 

Heather Page - 13:11 - Yes, absolutely. 

Kelly Perry - 13:14 - Good bosses are so important. Not only in being a good boss, it, it helps your bottom line, it helps that ms dot fear of your shop and, um, the way that your customers are treated just all in all. I think that cracking the code of managing well and loving well in that type of a setting is so key and important. So I'm so thankful that that's something that you have and I hope that that's something that can be replicated in shops all across the world. Well, heather, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been great to have you here on the team flower podcast. 

Heather Page - 13:53 - Thank you, Kelly. It was an absolute pleasure. I'm glad we finally got to speak. 

Kelly Perry - 13:58 - Yeah, I am too. And for all of you who've listened, thanks so much for tuning in. We'll see you next time. 

Kelly Perry - 14:05 - This podcast is brought to you by two flowers, flowers in online learning community, and a group of forest that are focused on Lebanon road through flowers. Whether you're a professional farmer, florists getting started or just love flowers, welcome to the party. If you'd like to know a new podcast episodes are released from video tutorials and articles, sign up for our pen pal club. It's free. Visit teamflower.org and click on free resources.