Is it just me, or are dried flowers having a moment? They’ve been cropping up in more Instagram feeds, Etsy stores and conversations that I can keep count of recently. And dare I say it, but they’ve pipped fresh flowers to the post for me.
I’ve always been a sucker for a good bunch of blooms. From stocks to sunflowers and daffs to peonies, there’s something so lovely and calming about them. Someone’s birthday? Flowers. New job? Flowers. Just passing through a supermarket? Flowers. You name it, I’ll have found an occasion to buy them for me or a (I like to think) lucky someone. But ever so pessimistically, that lovely, floral-induced feeling is always tainted with a lingering reservation that sprouts like a pesky weed. You know, the “How on earth do I actually keep them alive?” and “Is £25 for something that will last 8 days worth it?” reservations.
In blows The Happy Blossoms. I first spotted the brand over on Heart Zeena‘s Instagram and was instantly besotted. The colours, the textures, the juxtaposition of the rugged, wild flowers with the saccharine shades got me hook, line and sinker.
Run by Lauren Hooper and her parents (who I can only imagine are all absolutely lovely being the faces of such a wholesome brand) The Happy Blossoms is based in Dorset. Designing and hand-crafting beautiful bunches of dried flowers along with fresh ones, their Baked Blossoms are gracing the fireplaces and windowsills of a lot of UK homes right now having become an Instagrammers’ favourite and appearing on the pages of a long list of publications.
Their Baked Blossoms are the bunch stealing the limelight, made up of dried, painted and preserved flowers and grasses in a rainbow of colours. I went for The Sherbert Macaroon Dried Baked Blossom Bunch in small for £28 and they’re essentially that Christmas Eve feeling in flower form (honestly, I dare you to open the box and not feel absolute glee.) If they’re looked after properly with no water, direct sunlight and stored indoors, they should last up to a year, which is the kind of value for money and low maintenance I like to hear.
“Dried flowers are for spring, summer, autumn and winter.”
As well as being a complete and utter delight to ogle at, The Happy Blossoms are also a fully environmentally-friendly brand. So everything form the rustic cardboard box they arrive in to the polka-dot paper they’re wrapped in is recyclable, reusable or compostable. Tick, tick and tick.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still be going in for the fresh flower purchases. But since my Baked Blossoms have arrived, I’m pretty content with my permanent flower fixture and I’ll most definitely be trying to get my hands on another bunch when they’re in stock.
So, it’s official. Dried flowers are for spring, summer, autumn and winter. And yes, Miranda Priestley, it’s bloody groundbreaking.
Melissa McPhillips 