Nazy Saif

Founder & Chief Quaint Officer at Quite Quaint

Speaker

When I try to remember how my love for nature and curiosity started, it takes me back to a 6 Year old Nazy in a White Mitsubishi Van on long drive out of city with my mum and dad.

That was not an ordinary drive but a hunt for unusual artistic plants and branches that mom needed for an upcoming horticulture exhibition. Every time my mother noticed a shrub or branch she liked, my father would stop the van and we would get out side and add it to the collection.

That little trip taught me to look out and observe nature with a keen eye. Stopping whenever I have to on the way.

My first real exposure and confidence to make flower arrangements was when I was 8 years old and my mother taught me how to place flowers in two pink plastic balls, ‘A connecting arrangement’ she explained how two separate balls were connected together with flowers and leaves and bringing them closer.

Since then I have participated in numerous horticulture shows , learnt Ikebana from wonderful teachers and practiced the art at home and now as a professional floral designer in my own company ‘ Love, Nazy by Quite Quaint’

In between there was also a time when I managed communications and Corporate social responsibility at a bank where I had the opportunity to design campaigns for our staff and allocate funds for some wonderful NGO’s in education, mental health and poverty alleviation. As creative team lead , I also steered my department into winning a nationwide competition on ‘ Visualizing & representing your Ambition through art’

As owner and founder of Love, Nazy I have had the pleasure to work with some wonderful organizations, facilitated flower arrangement workshops for at least thousand plus individuals. The highlight being a 3 day flower workshop at the Finland Pavilion Expo 2020. I was hired by the Finnish Brand Fiskars to demonstrate their gardening and flower arranging tools for buyers in this market, make table scapes with Royal Albert crockery, arrange flowers on Rogiska crystal and interact with some wonderful people while teaching them about flowers, plants and tools. An experience I shall never forget.

I have also done workshops for the ladies who are members of Majlis Al Amal at the Al Jalila Foundation. My drive is to spread floral joy and empowerment to as many people aspossible, Happiness is when a workshop participant who has never cut and arranged flowers does so for the first time and enjoys it.

I want to empower as many people as possible with the knowledge that they can feel better and have good mental health with very little as long as they step outside and stop to look.

Find the beauty in that curve of a branch, smell those leaves, feel the grass.

Besides being an absolute tree hugger I like to read, walk, enjoy a cup oftea with some toast, listening to the birds and looking at the sky ever so often.

— Nazy