Flowers of Love: A Week of Love Languages

This started as a project that I had no idea which way to take it. I explored different areas of topics that I enjoyed and wanted to learn more about and finally came to the conclusion of what I would really want to know: what love languages was I receiving and giving? Will it align with what my preference is? Maybe it will make me more appreciative? These were some of my questions when I decided to take on the task of tracking the love languages in my everyday life. Have you ever wondered if your actions or words matched with what you think is your preferred love language? This is what grew on me to really want to track this in my personal life. If I could see what I was giving and receiving then I would know how to interact with those close to me and know how I would want love to be shown to me.

As soon as I knew what I would be tracking, I started brainstorming how I wanted my visualization to look like. I wanted flowers. That I was certain about. How would I represent it? I didn’t really want to think that far ahead just yet.

I found inspiration through this big book of visualizations on different topics that my professor let us browse through and just my luck… there was a flower visualization (above). This one was about movies and different genres, so it was an interesting take for me to want to change up for my data.

I started creating a mental vision of what I wanted my project to look like.

Up next was that I had to start actually tracking it. This part came a little natural to me since I decided to track it in my iPhone notes app, but how was I going to write it down? Should I write it right when I receive/ give it? “That would be a little weird, just pulling my phone out right after,” I remember thinking to myself. So at first I just waited until a little after the act/ words to write it in my notes. It got a little more difficult on the weekend. With a busy schedule I was forgetting to write it down, so I would have to try and remember at the end of the day.

A look in my notes app. Left: what I was receiving. Right: what I was giving.

I would put the love languages in abbreviation so my fiancé wouldn’t see that I was tracking this, since I really wanted it to be genuine. Even though looking at it, I’m pretty sure if he were to have seen it, it kinda would have been obvious, especially with fiancé written all over the place.

Before I knew it, it was time to start drafting it up.

These were the first notes as I was about to start designing the data.

I was going to start by going through each day in the notes and writing down what love language was received and by who… but before I started I gave up and decided to dive directly into designing it and let my thoughts be visualized.

First draft

In the first draft, I was thinking of having each plant at the top of the stem represent the certain people I was receiving the love language from, while having the leaves on the side represent the specific love language. That sounded off. So I switched it.

This time I was going to have it with actual flowers at the top, with those representing the specific love languages, with the leaves representing who it was coming from. I had also decided that the days were going to be represeted by thorns separating them from each other.

The symbols representing each group matched up with who they were representing in my eyes, for some reason it just made sense in my brain.

Same with the colors- they represented the love language in a way that made sense to my heart. Not to mention — I matched my preferred love language in my favorite color ;). Hint: it’s red.

And then it all came together.

Finishing the visualization made me realize a lot of things …

First was that those around me were actually showing me love in my preferred love language. Did they know it was and they do it on purpose? Or was that just also their love language? In the case of my fiancé, I think he was doing it on purpose since he is welllll aware.

Second thing I realized was that of course my fiancé would give me the most in his preferred love language, I just needed to be more appreciative when receiving it. Try to guess which one is his love language when you look at the Flowers of Love I received.

Last thing I really noticed was that I thought I would be giving more than I was receiving, but I had not taken into account the amount of people I have around me. In most cases I can’t show them my love with my acts of service.

Now that I have details of the love languages that were given to me from those around me, I can make better decisions to cater my love to them to show my appreciation.

This project has made me become more appreciative in the finer details and of the people who truly care for me.

And now for the Flowers of Love:

A very important note: completely forgot to add my dog Milou to this project :( he got lots of qt, pt, woa + even a gift this week, and he gave lots of qt + pt ❤

Designs made through Canva.