Category: Garden

My love of flowers has gotten me this far, at least. In fact, my adoration for all things that grow has informed many of my decisions, but mostly I’m hoping it’ll win me the Great Australian Make (Up) Off crown. As in, I’m REALLY hoping. The other two girls are so good, I’m not sure I can do it.

Whenever we’ve had a challenge, I’ve just imagined my little planter box on the balcony outside: my daffodil varieties, growing tall and strong. In fact, that was what got me through week three. I did terribly on the technical challenge- completely failed in mixing my own blend of foundation and gave my model a persistent rash- but I managed to turn things around with my final glam piece: a feat of stage makeup inspired by bright yellows that I called ‘Sun-Kissed Celebration’. I just closed my eyes, thought of daffodils and let that guide me. My model was thrilled with the look and I saw plenty of people online replicating the look, with my title!

Of course, week seven was easy…flower week! I breezed through the classic challenge, where we have to use our own faces and a mirror. We were supposed to make a flower-inspired look, which is most of my looks already. The judges said they’ve never seen a hyacinth so accurately represented in a person before! Then the practical had us actual using makeup on flowers, and finally my glam piece was a combination daffodil cross tulip look, to be used in the ballet of Goose Reservoir. Naturally, that week I was in no danger of elimination.

And here I am in the final. Me! Flower-obsessed old me. Have to keep it together, even amongst the stress. Just imagine your tulip bulbs, so peaceful and full of potential. Think of swaying daffodils, reaching up to the sunlight…and everything will be fine.

-Mayzie

I’m a very level person, I think. Only a few things actually make me angry, chief among them when a film that I was really looking forward to doesn’t even come close to living up to its potential. Like in Z-Men: The Stand Before the Last One where they completely mangled the story from the original comics and disrespected the characters. THAT made me mad. And on a similar topic, I also get angry when things just don’t happen the way they’re supposed to, and it’s totally not your fault. Last month I planted some daffodil bulbs, looked after them just like the guide on the internet said, gave them water and sunlight…and now they’re gone. Dead. No longer of this world. I did nothing wrong!

And when my friend Sandy came over for our Wednesday dance fitness class, she told me that I’d over-watered them. I trust Sandy because she worked at a florist for three months a few years ago, but that’s crazy. I actually measured the amount of water I was giving them, down to the last millilitre, and there was nothing wrong with that. Maybe the guide I followed was wrong? Thing was, all the daffodil guides I read said slightly different things, so I tried to even it out. Maybe next time I’m going guide-free and just doing it all on instinct.

Oh, and another thing: cooking. If you follow the recipe perfectly and your cake or brownies or cupcakes come out wrong, I’m sorry…that’s the recipe’s fault and you need to fix your stupid recipe. Cooking is not the same thing as rocket science, where one tiny calculation throws off the whole thing and causes an explosion. So long as you measure correctly, it’s not your fault if your cake ends up looking like a nuclear testing site. Same goes for those daffodil varieties that didn’t quite make it. How about next time I give you NO water? Because that’s the only thing I can think of that makes sense at this point…

-Leo