Here is the BIG news that I told you about on Friday and it's called Decorate With Flowers! In fact, this is a very big day for Leslie Shewring and I because finally, FINALLY, we can announce our new book to the world! We began working on this concept for a flowers book in early 2012 so when we landed a book deal this past spring with only the summer to bring our concept to life, we knew we had to get moving! And we were lucky enough to include some of our favorite stylists and bloggers in this book, including Emily Henderson, Bri Emery and Victoria Smith, to share flowers in their homes, too!

About the book! Published by Jacqui Small LLP, Decorate With Flowers offers advice on selecting, combining and arranging flowers to best complement your decor. The book is separated into eight styles because we wanted to show flowers in real homes, not just close up shots of floral arrangements. We never intended for our book to focus on a professional approach to floral design rather, being stylists not florists, we thought to take our experience and create an approachable book that we felt was missing in the market. We wanted to create a book that spoke to those of us who just want to experiment and get playful with real flowers without feeling like we have to pre-order specific blooms or invest a large chunk of cash into a single arrangement. In Decorate With Flowers, we also include step-by-step projects and crafting ideas showing how to adapt and decorate containers in a creative way with ribbons and trims, paint, string and fabric. You will also learn how to arrange flowers like a stylist along with the importance of placing them in the right container, and where. Additionally, we created some easy-to-follow entertaining pages to help you to create pretty and approachable floral decorations for entertaining at home, from tea parties to cocktails with friends. Whether you want to make the most of freshly picked blooms from the garden, or you crave to put your personal stamp on the more generic pre-packaged bunch from the local market, Decorate with Flowers, will leave you inspired and excited to work more freely with flowers and containers in a spirit of exploration and creativity.

When we showed our friend, Amy Butler, the book she had this to say,

To pre-order and receive £5.00 off when ordering online at Waterstones.com, please use voucher code HB2014 upon checkout. Decorate With Flowers releases in the UK on March 21, 2014 (which coincidentally, is my birthday!). Chronicle Books will publish it on May 6, 2014 for the North American market (pre-order here), though with a different jacket but the same title. Australia will follow with a few foreign language editions later on.

Waterstones.com Terms and Conditions -- Discount code HB2014 entitles you to pre-order Decorate With Flowers by Holly Becker and Leslie Shewring for £15.00 (RRP £20.00) at Waterstones.com. Discount code is valid from 24/10/2013 to midday 30/11/2013. Discount can only be used once per person. One discount code to be used per transaction. Discount code cannot be used with any other voucher or coupon. Discount code can only be used at time of purchase and not retrospectively. This voucher can only be used on Waterstones.com and not in Waterstones stores. All prices onWaterstones.com are online only and may differ from Waterstones stores. Voucher Code not valid on Reserve and Collect.

By the way... This book was a real labor of love because I was at my peak of pregnancy illness only 4 weeks after we began shooting. I was down and out in bed working on the book from my iPad - it was crazy! Leslie and I were in touch daily to hash out our next plan, the next shoot, the next idea. With her all the way in British Columbia and me over here in Germany, it was a challenge! But there is also a funny story behind everything. Leslie came to spend a week with me in Hannover so we could begin shooting right before I found out I was pregnant. Over dinner one night we were dishing about pregnancy and how much I wanted to have a baby and how I knew my husband and I really needed to start taking the whole baby thing more seriously -- like the song goes, "A less conversation and a little more action."  A few weeks after she left, I felt a bit "odd" and so I took a pregnancy test just because - and to my shock I was already 6 weeks pregnant. While I was whining to Leslie about getting pregnant, I was already there. So this book came at a special and challenging time for me personally but this makes it even better now because I'll forever recall writing it with my dear friend Leslie at a very precious time in my life with my baby boy as my muse. And the best part - I started feeling better later on in the project and was able to give this book my all so you can expect a whole lotta Leslie and Holly style up in here! You can't beat a memory like that, can you?

10/30 UPDATE: We received the jacket proof so today I wrapped it around a book of the same size to see how it looks - amazing. This will be such a lovely book!

Leslie and I hope that you will pre-order and enjoy our book! We put a lot of love into it just for you. xo

Pre-Order Here and remember to use Discount code HB2014 upon checkout!

(photo:Book jacket photography by Leslie Shewring, design by Helen Bratby)