Branded | The Botanical Studio

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September and October proved to be busy months for me. Coincidence or cosmic alignment lead me to The Botanical Studios while apartment shopping in Phoenix and the chance encounter lead to one of my favorite brand collabs to date.

The birth of The Botanical Studios began in a greenhouse when it's founder Raven Hill spent her childhood summers attending to the plants her grandparents grew. It was a modest greenhouse built by her grandfather and looked after and cared for by her grandmother and Raven found herself more interested in the complexities of seedlings and perennials than her childhood counterparts who were busy spending Saturday afternoons catching up on cartoons. Nature it seemed moved and intrigued her. As a creative who grew up playing with blossoms and bushes her entire life, Raven ripened with a natural sensitivity and appreciation to flowers. In college, she continued growing that passion with a thesis revolved around organic matter and not long after, The Botanical Studio's was born. In a sense, Raven didn't choose the florist life...the florist life chose her.

With a background degree in sculpture and art, Raven honed her passion for floral creating unique, bold, and wildly imaginative wedding decorations each created with love, strong hands, and a fine eye for all the important details. For this stylized collaboration, the focus was on home interior installations, a service Raven added to her collection after requests from many brides to infuse the outdoors into their living rooms. As such, Raven created a mesmerizing site-specific installation that captured the beauty of nature in three dimensions for this shoot inside the home of her good friend Annamarie.

Raven's work allows the viewer time to observe nature within a controlled space and her art mesmerizes the viewer in a world of color that challenges the longevity of working with such a fragile material.

With a medium that is essentially perishable, Raven's interior installations set out to prove that beauty doesn't have to be fleeting. Unlike weddings and events where the various blooms used eventually wither and die the next day, her site-specific work is curated to express the personalities and sensibilities of each of her clients that they can enjoy for an interminable length of time.

Annamarie graciously opened up her home for this shoot as well as modeled for us and the moment I stepped into her gorgeous house nestled in the foothills of Phoenix I felt as if I'd stepped inside of a West Elm catalog. From the wicker peacock chair to the incased butterflies, Annamarie's style is described as a mixture of rustic, and bohemian, with farmhouse elements and Scandinavian touches. It was simple, inviting, and at every turn, there was some tiny detail that caught your eye and told a story like the vintage National Geographic issues used to prop up the dried rye and wheat stalks.

Annamarie's home is truly every bit as gorgeous as the person she is and I definitely walked away with some style inspiration for my Arizona apartment once I move! Below are some of my favorite images from this branded shoot.