Why Chicory Blue is the Best Blue.
Hello Friends! Welcome back to the BLOG. I was recently patting myself on the back about how consistent I've been with the emails when I realized I forgot we had a blog. In my head, our emails had become our blog but...that's not the way this works. So here I am back on the blog which I will LINK in the email for the week. Slowly but surely I'm learning. And that's showbiz, baby.
As you all know, time has sped up and we are almost through July. With the end of July comes the blooming of one of my favorite flowers; The Cornflower. Also known as Chicory, Cornflowers bloom late summer, their roots can be roasted to make a coffee like drink, and they are a distinguishable periwinkle blue color. Last year when I was grappling with the idea of totally rebranding our shop, I was surrounded by cornflowers and the color was pulling me in. I have many pictures of these bright blooms from morning after morning of hot summer walks with my dog. Something about that color was calming and brave and unique and I couldn't get enough of it.
As we worked with our favorite designer Mike (at Lost FLX) on developing our new name and logo I felt like I was hitting a creative wall. Until one day it hit me. I sent him a quick email: "How about we try this color" and forwarded him a sample of one of my cornflower pictures. He quickly applied it and it was exactly right. We both knew it immediately.
In that moment I realized why these cornflowers had been calling to me all summer. It was a symbol of what we needed to be. Strong. Beautiful. Unique. Resilient. Unbothered by hardship.
In case you aren't familiar with these blooms, I'll explain. Every mid-late summer Cornflowers begin to spring up all over. When I say all over I really mean ALL OVER. for example, the first plant I saw this year was standing tall and proud in the middle of one of the largest parking lots in town. This scrappy plant had squeezed it's way up through a TINY crack in the pavement next to a fire hydrant and was happily soaking up the sun and covered in my favorite blue flowers. It didn't care that there wasn't a blade of grass in sight and it didn't care that there was no water, it just BLOOMED. And that's what they do. When drought comes, they bloom. When they get mowed down, they bloom. when green spaces get paved, they bloom.
That was the reminder I needed at that moment last summer. I needed to be reminded to BLOOM. So we did. We told our base what was happening with grace and our base helped us every step of the way. We raised funds to cover the costs of the rebrand, and we did everything we could to make the transition as simple as possible for our customers and clients. We even threw a party to announce our new name that was extremely well attended and joyful. We chose to BLOOM in the face of hardship.
A year later I must admit to being a little emotional as I look back at what we've accomplished. In many ways I'm tempted to feel like we had a year stolen from us but at the end of the day I'm so pleased to see how far we have come and to know that we will bloom no matter what. Sure we haven't gone viral, sure we aren't as huge as some companies in our niche, but we're here. and we're steadily growing. In the past year we have gained hundreds of online and in-store customers that we look forward to hearing from on a regular basis and we've been able to hire Halie, a wonderful full time employee who is passionate about our mission and our community working hard to accomplish our goals at the shop every day. To see that we have made progress after feeling like we almost disappeared last year is humbling and more motivating than ever.
Every time I look at our cornflower blue sign out front and cornflower blue logo, I am reminded of the resilience and the strength that we have gained over these last few years. This summer as the cornflowers bloom I feel a sense of determination that's been baked into our brand at Marilla's through some hard knocks and life lessons I will never forget. So even though our color is hard to find sometimes, and sometimes people call it purple (It's NOT PURPLE) I'm thankful for our rebrand. I'm thankful for the journey to become "Marilla's Mindful Supplies" and I'm thankful for the cornflowers popping up in parking lots reminding me that it's good and meaningful to fight for something beautiful in a dark place.
I wish you all strength, resilience and beauty today and I look forward to seeing you soon!
-Marilla
