Folks! Friends! Fellow humans living on this nice crispy earth!

The year is 2023. The global is warming, the 1 are %ing and things are looking iffy… Enter the Soft Apocalypse! It’s time for us to give capitalism the finger, and return to our humble roots as a pastoral society that bakes bread and sings Kumbaya way too often. AKA my escapist daydream when the Stresses of Life get a bit too much (my Soft Apocalypse plan includes joining a commune and ✨learning the language of the goats✨).

Welcome to Soft Apocalypse for Beginners, where we will be embarking on a journey of Learning to Look After Ourselves Even if the World is Ending (and saving the bees while we’re at it)!

Any good dystopian revolutionary/post-apocalyptic trudger of the earth can tell you that the most important part of surviving in the apocalypse is the aesthetic. Would Katniss have been able to take down the Capitol if it hadn’t been for the iconic sidebraid? Could Thomas have ever escaped the maze if he hadn’t been wearing that odd little vest? Important questions to which we may never have the answers. However, better safe than sorry, so in order to truly excel in our most aesthetic of all apocalypses (the Soft one) we must embrace the uniform of our experience. THAT’S RIGHT, WE’RE MAKING FLOWER CROWNS (AND OTHER COTTAGECORE NICETIES).

via GIPHY

I’m hoping we all know how to daisy chain here. I’m hoping that – like me – you are now imagining the daisy chain as a complex but romantic dance move, not dissimilar to a grapevine. For the purposes of today though, the daisy chain we will be discussing is that of the tangibly floral variety. The technical base of our floral DNA, daisy chaining is the basic way to link flowers into a useable strand, and it goes something like this:

1. Gather your daisies, keeping the stems as long as possible.
2. Using your thumbnail, make a small slit in the stem, about a centimetre down from the flower head.
3. Poke the stem of another daisy through the slit and pull it gently through.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 on the new daisy, and et voilà! Continue until your daisy chain is the desire length.

Now that you can daisy chain, congratulations! Frolic off into the summer sunset making flower crowns, bracelets, and chains for all your loved ones! Or. If you’re hooked on the cottagecore power of it all. You could attempt a Daisy Braid (capitalised because it’s harder).

1. Gather your flowers (any type can be used, but long stems are essential, preferably longer than 10cm).
2. Starting with a minimum of three flowers (the more flowers, the thicker the crown), start to braid the stems together.
3. At intervals of your choosing, introduce new flowers into the braid.
4. Once the braid has reached the desired length, you can tuck the loose end back into the beginning of the braid OR tie it in place with a piece of thread.
5. Wear your flower crown like the pretty creature you are and practice rejecting offers of marriage from Oberon and Titania.

It’s springtime baby.

Other Cottagecore Niceties….

While first priority is adorning ourselves in flowers, it’s also pretty neat to add a little floral hint to literally anything you like thanks to the power of STICKERS! We’re going to be using pressed and dried flowers for this – if you have a bona fide flower press sitting around at home then great (did you know you can make your very own flower press at the Tūhura HIVE Makerspace?)! Otherwise test out the handy dandy methods below:

For the pressed flowers: Collect as many flower heads as you like, then lay them flat between two paper towels. Squash these down under something solid, flat and heavy (like that stack of library books you forgot to read), and leave to dry for five days or thereabouts. You can check your flowers at this point, and if they still feel damp then leave them for another few days.

For the flower stickers: You’ll need a roll of wide, clear tape, your pressed flowers, some baking paper, and a pair of scissors. Lay out a sheet of baking paper, and place down a length of tape, sticky side down so it adheres to the baking paper. Arrange your dried flowers on top of the tape, either individually or in clusters (but making sure there is good bit of space between the flowers and the edge of the tape). Lay a second layer of tape over the flowers and first layer of tape, again sticky-side down so the flowers are stuck between the two layers. You can then cut around the flowers, leaving an edge of clear double-layered tape, and there you go! Once you’re ready to stick them to something, simply peel off the layer of baking paper and you’re good to go!

Flowerheart / Bakewell, Catherine
“Sixteen-year-old Clara accidentally curses her father with wild magic, and in order to save him, she makes a dangerous bargain with a local wizard, who happens to be her childhood best friend.” (Catalogue)

Floret Farm’s discovering dahlias : a guide to growing and arranging magnificent blooms / Benzakein, Erin
“Grow and arrange breathtaking dahlias to enhance every occasion. In this luxe compendium, world-renowned flower farmer and floral designer Erin Benzakein reveals all the secrets to cultivating gorgeous dahlias. ” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Flower fairies of the garden / Barker, Cicely Mary
“The Song of The Narcissus Fairy Brown bulbs were buried deep; Now, from the kind old earth, Out of the winter’s sleep, Comes a new birth! Flowers on stems that sway; Flowers of snowy white; Flowers as sweet as day, After the night. So does Narcissus bring Tidings most glad and plain- “Winter’s gone; here is Spring – Easter again!”” (Catalogue)

Wild beauty / McLemore, Anna-Marie
“For nearly a century the Nomeolvides women have tended the grounds and lush estate gardens of La Pradera. They have a tragic legacy: if they fall in love too deeply, their lovers vanish. When a strange boy appears in the gardens, he is a mystery to Estrella and to her family, but he’s even more a mystery to himself. ” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Flower : exploring the world in bloom
“Showcasing the diversity of blooms from all over the world, Flower spans a wide range of styles and media – from art, botanical illustrations, and sculptures to floral arrangements, film stills, and textiles – and follows a visually stunning sequence with works, regardless of period, thoughtfully paired to allow interesting and revealing juxtapositions between them.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Weedflower / Kadohata, Cynthia
“After twelve-year-old Sumiko and her Japanese-American family are relocated from their flower farm in southern California to an internment camp on a Mojave Indian reservation in Arizona, she helps her family and neighbors, becomes friends with a local Indian boy, and tries to hold on to her dream of owning a flower shop.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Florapedia : a brief compendium of floral lore / Gracie, Carol
“This book is an engaging and informative compendium of flower facts. Similar in a nature to Lawrence Millman’s Fungipedia, the book brings together a wide range of interesting facts and stories-ranging from the historical to the scientific to the whimsical. ” (Adapted from Catalogue)

This poison heart / Bayron, Kalynn
“When Briseis’s aunt dies and wills her a dilapidated estate in rural New York, Bri and her parents leave Brooklyn behind for the summer. Hopefully there, surrounded by plants and flowers, Bri will finally learn to control her gift: the ability to grow plants from tiny seeds to rich blooms with a single touch. ” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Flower art : Makoto Azuma / Azuma, Makoto
“The art of Makoto Azuma uses flowers and plants as its starting point, but juxtaposes their timeless yet transient beauty with an incredibly diverse range of striking settings. In a series of sculptures, installations and interactive events, he delights in blurring the boundaries between nature and artifice. ” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Girls who green the world : thirty-four rebel women out to save our planet / Kapp, Diana
“A guidebook to the modern environmental movement featuring 34 inspiring women working to save our planet”– Provided by publisher.” (Catalogue)

Growing wonder : a flower farmer’s guide to roses / Alvarez, Felicia
“Do you dream of possessing a magical rose garden or a thriving flower farm? Whether you long to fill your own acreage with roses or consider yourself more of a weekend gardener, Menagerie Farm & Flower’s Felicia Alvarez can help make your love affair with roses a joyous and rewarding experience. ” (Adapted from Catalogue)

The price guide to the occult / Walton, Leslye J.
“Sixteen-year-old Nor, who comes from a long line of witches, prefers to hide her ability to communicate with nature and lives in constant fear of the return of her abusive mother.” (Catalogue)

Hope for the flowers / Paulus, Trina
“Two caterpillars plunge into the pile of those who seek the ever elusive top, but, finding nothing there, return to the ground to change into beautiful butterflies.” (Catalogue)

Foolproof flower embroidery : 80 stitches & 400 combinations in a variety of fibers / Clouston, Jennifer
“This comprehensive guide to floral embroidery features instructions for more than 80 embroidery stitches and includes more than 400 stitch combinations to create beautiful flowers, stems, leaves, twigs, and more”– Provided by publisher.” (Catalogue)