The Bouqs Company Flowers Product Review

I was recently contacted by The Bouqs Company to do a product review.  I occasionally get offers for product reviews but ignore them because the free product offered in exchange for review just doesn't entice me.  However when I got the offer from The Bouqs, I was totally interested in a free bouquet of flowers in exchange for an honest review! I mean, who doesn't want free flowers? 

I had never heard of The Bouqs Company before.  When it comes to ordering flowers online, I am most familiar with Pro Flowers.  I have recieved Pro Flowers multiple times from my loving parents and sister and have sent them as well.  I've always been happy with the quality of the bouquets I've received, only once did they not seem fresh.  I will say it always frustrated me when I was on the ordering end, and thinking it was going to be one price and then at checkout, after the shipping and fees the price being a LOT more, and it was always hard to decide what to order, not knowing if it would be good or not.

Let me introduce you to The Bouqs Company if you are not familiar with them...They are apparently grown on the side of a volcano in Equador providing the flowers lots of sun, snow melt and mineral rich soil resulting in amazing color.  They are cut the day you order and arrive within 2-4 days.  

When shopping on their website, I found it very easy to browse and although there were lots of beautiful arrangements to choose from, it was pretty simple to just choose a bouquet without worrying about price comparison.   You simple browse through their gallery of beautiful bouqs and when you select one you like, you can then choose which size you would like, a classic sized bouq being $40, a delux which is double the size for $50 or a grand bouq which is tripple the size for $70.  There are no other fees or shipping so once you select your bouq and the size you want, that is it!  I really enjoyed browsing through their online shop which I refer to as their gallery because the photography is so gorgeous!  

I decided to go with the Bouq called Dawn, I ordered the Original $40 bouquet of roses. My Bouq arrived by FedEx the morning of the date I had selected for delivery which was a Thursday.  I really liked the slim, black sleek package design.  I made a little video of when I opened up the package, the sound didn't work but just to give you an idea of what to expect...

fyi I got a little distracted by my kitties at the last part of the video...

 Here's the Customs sticker as these came from Equador, straight from the volcano!

 When you open the box you will first see the care instructions printed on the box...

And on the inside is the notecard that you can customize to the person you are sending flowers to, adding your own message.

The bouq was securely wrapped so all the flowers were protected and not shaken about during shipment.  There was a cool little thermal pouch/sleeve that kept the ends of the stems moist and cool.  When I opened the bouquet there were a few outer rose petals here and there that were not as pretty, but I just removed them, showing off the very beautiful petals underneath.  I think I actually learned about that from a special episode about flowers on the Nate Berkus show a long time ago...when ordering flowers, consider some of the outer petals part of the packaging that needs to be removed.  Anyways, the color was amazing and vibrant and pretty much like the picture on the website, but not only that, they had a very nice smell too.  I kept them on my kitchen island and everytime I walked past I would catch a wiff and it was such a treat!

I had a friend come over the second day I had these and she was really impressed, we were hanging out in the kitchen and she was like "OH MY GOSH! Where did you get these flowers! They are gorgeous!" and later as we were still visiting, she was like "I'm sorry, these flowers are so pretty they keep distracting me!"  I was pretty much obsessed with them as well!  I loved the rich vibrant pink/yellow/tangerine-y color!

Yes I took even more photos than this because I was obsessed with them! They were so pretty!  I was very happy with them and I'm actually planning on using The Bouqs to send flowers to my hubby's grandma this week after enjoying mine for over a week.  I waiting to post my review so I could let you all know how long the bouquet lasted for.  I got the flowers on last Thursday and today is Sunday so I've had them for 11 days.  They stayed vibrant and beautiful for a full week and then as the days went past a week, they started to lose some of the vibrant color and looked a little more pale, but not bad, but by yesterday, the 10th day, they were looking like they were at a good point to hang up to dry, but I didn't do that yet, maybe tomorrow, I'm still hanging on to them...Today they are looking definitely not fresh anymore but still in good enough shape to hang up to dry.  So based on my experience, The Bouq roses lasted nicely for a week and a half.  I'm not an expert, but I think that is fine...I have had flowers in the past that don't last very long and are already on the tail end of their existence when I received them, but other times I've had bouquets that have lasted 2 full weeks.  

So that is my honest opinion.  I really enjoy the appearance, format and ease of use of their website and how streamlined, straightforward and cost friendly it is.  AND I enjoyed the actual bouquet too.  The Bouqs Company also has an app you can get on your phone to make it even easier to send flowers.  I know I will be using them in the future as I do not live close to family so any occasion I want to give flowers to a relative, I usually order online or call a local florist and have them deliver, but it's always been more than the $40 flat fee you get with The Bouqs, plus I'm ordering blind in that situation and just trusting it will be good.  I ordered Dawn, here is the picture from The Bouqs Company Online Shop, and thought my bouquet was pretty close to the actual picture.  My photos above were actually a little overexposed so they look a bit lighter than they really were.  The color wasn't exactly as intense as this sample photo, but it was similar and still very striking so I was not disappointed.

Before I finish, let me leave you with some of my other favorite bouquets I saw on The Bouqs Company when selecting my flowers.

 Marshmallow

Vibrance

 An Elegant Twist

 Harvest Moon

 Sincere

Shop The Bouqs Company

Click HERE to save $10 off your first Bouquet

Disclaimer:  I recieved a free bouquet of flowers of my choice in exchange for a review, I will receive a small compensation from any sales of Bouqs that come through this blog.

Summer Mantle Decor, Flowers and Starter Garden

Summer Mantle Decor 

from around the house

Nothing beats free decor!  I needed to swap out my easter mantle for something more summery, so I spent 10 minutes looking rounding up some stuff from around the house.  It's not perfect or the coolest mantle decor but I think I'm slowly improving in switching up the mantle and arranging things...from May-Dec of last year the mantle was very bare with like a small picture and a couple other things and just looked dumb.

The picture frame was in my daughter's bathroom, the clam and basket of sea shells (and the shells in the glass cylinders from the $1 store are all from the beach in Madison, CT)  

The pink wreath I picked up at a church yard sale for $2

 The green bottle was a bottle of sparkling cider from thanksgiving, I had the stems in the craft room, the conch shell was a centerpiece from a wedding 5 or 6 years ago...and my friend gave me the white vase as a gift last year

I love these shells

I might switch it up, but I think it's better than it was before and all I did was look around the house to see what I had.  It's fun to challenge myself to be resourceful and figure out how to use what I have rather than going out and trying to buy everything new each season!

I also planted some lillies...we'll see how they hold up!

Here is the start to our first garden!  If you know what those are growing in front, then you will also know that I am an idiot.  I got all excited and started planting seeds in these starter cells with the kids...then when I was telling my mom what we planted she laughed and said we were supposed to plant the carrots straight into the ground...how are they going to grow in these small things??!?  So yeah...didn't really think it through or obviously read the package that closely because when I went back and looked there was an actual picture showing it being planted right in the ground.

We are going to build our raised garden bed this weekend hopefully....we need to get it ready and move those carrots!  It's a good thing my husband is really interested in having a garden, he wants to grow tons of tomatos and he'll probably be the one to make sure it stays healthy...I am determined, but I've just had bad luck with every pot of plants I've ever had so I'm trying not to set myself up for disappointment.  My mom knew my hesitation so she surprised me with a subscription to Organic Gardening to help inspire me...and..it did.  But I'll never have a garden as awesome as hers...

Sneak Peak at my inventory in progress!

Since I keep mentioning I'm getting ready for my first arts and craft fair, I thought I'd give a sneak peak at my works in progress...some finished...most not so finished...I'm a big procrastinator....I work better under pressure! haha!  A self induced curse sorta, my younger bro is the same way...:P  (love ya Joey!)

Anyways, today I will be assembling a lot of the headbands, everything is ready to go! I'd like to make some more ties, I have other fabrics I haven't gotten to yet but we'll see!  I have a love hate relationship with sewing due to my $50 brother sewing machine from walmart!  If I don't want to totally kill my motivation to sew things I'm going to have to upgrade to a better sewing machine in the near future!  I have made a lot of stuff with that sewing machine but man, every other seam the tension seems to magically change by itself, or the thread jams, breaks, and I might break my seam ripper before I break my machine!!! Anyways...ok that's not what I'm blogging about so onto some pics..

I think there are around 30 finished ties....I hope to get a few more done and some bow ties too. These neck ties have been like, almost a year in the making...well since the beg of this year when I whipped one up for Bronson's birthday pictures and have been wanting to make more.  These are more of a fall winter collection of fabrics....

 Appliqued scotty dog

 green houndstooth

 classic plaid

 brown houndstooth tie

 love yellow and grey

 rusty orange houndstooth tie

 neutral applique deer tie

 applique terrier dog tie on a classic preppy navy blue fabric

 black and grey skinny ties for the hipster babies/kids

I wasn't planning on doing headbands originally, but needed a break from my sewing machine and the ties and after my sister loved the headbands I sent for her baby girl, I started getting into it.  I knew how to make the rolled fabric flowers but Crystal from wannabebalanced got me addicted to making these flowers where you singe the edges.

 

I got the crochet headbands in the ribbon section on spools so I had to cut and sew them to make the headbands, there were smaller sections left over so I made a couple bracelets with the leftovers..I also have some brown crochet bands to sew and some of the brown stretchy ribbon lacey kind like that white in the picture.  I'll have to post some of the finished headbands when they are all done

 Head bands sewn and ready to be decked out

Here are some of the flowers for the headbands and bracelets, i enjoyed embellishing some of the flower edges with glitter...adding a little bling!

 

I have more canvas art to make

yeah....i need to organize this room a bit (yes it's a disaster!)....That's why I keep the door closed.