8 Creative Ways to Repurpose a Bouquet of Almost Dead Flowers

Flowers might be simple crafts of nature, but their ability to light up a room is undeniable. Flowers can hold meaningful memories if you received them for a special occasion.

As much joy as they bring in their prime, there's something sad about seeing flowers die. It feels like such a waste that something so beautiful is fading.

Instead of procrastinating for a few days and then tossing them in the trash, you can do something more productive with your dying flowers. Check out these great ideas to breathe new life into your dead flowers.

How to Re-purpose Dying and Dead Flowers

Your flowers can bring joy long after they die. Try these fun ideas.

1. Give Your Bouquet a Vintage Look

The simplest solution is to turn a live bouquet into a dried bouquet. With the right vase, dried flowers can have a beautiful vintage charm.

When your flowers start to die, toss out the water so it doesn't grow mold. Next, find a vase that has a retro look. A popular combination is a dried rose bouquet with a turquoise 50s-style vase.

2. Create Custom Art

Dried and pressed flowers can make great wall art. Try pressing the flowers before they get too dry and brittle. With a gentle touch, put them in frames that fit your room's style.

For an easy solution, use a single flower in each frame. Some people choose to get more creative, though. You can use dried petals to create an ornate arrangement in the frame.

You might think this only works if the flowers are a color that looks nice on your walls, but that's not true. It's easy to dye flowers to almost any color you want.

If you want to dye your flowers, you need to plan ahead, though. It's best to dye them while they still have some life left.

3. Stock Up for Other Decor Pieces

Pressing and framing are far from the only ways to use your old flowers in your decor.

One option is to use dried flower petals as vase fillers for silk flowers. They offer the volume you need to keep silk flowers in position. They provide a more natural and colorful look than artificial options like glass stones.

Another way to use your dried flower petals is to fill up shadow box frames. These frames are open at the top with space for you to put items into the frame.

There's a popular wedding trend today in which guests sign wooden hearts or similar small items and put them in this type of frame. You can fill your shadow box frames with petals instead.

Another great option is to use the petals as fillers for centerpieces on your dinner table. A simple fishbowl filled with dried flowers can create a beautiful look.

4. Scent It Up

Potpourri is one of the most popular ways to use dried flowers. While their vibrant looks may fade, their fresh scents remain for weeks.

No matter what type of flowers you have, you can customize the potpourri to your favorite scents. You can do something as simple as tossing the petals in a bowl or you can use a more complex potpourri recipe.

5. Use the Flowers to Clean

If you want a more direct way to get your flowers' scent into your home, you can use them to make cleaning supplies.

The most popular choice is flower-infused water. You start by boiling water, then dropping in the petals and letting them simmer until most of the color is gone from the petals.

At this point, remove the water from the heat and let it cool to room temperature. Finally, strain the water into a spritzer bottle and toss the remaining petals. You can use this to spritz bedclothes and furniture.

6. Build a Hairpiece

Putting flowers in your hair is all the rage in the fashion world, and it's not limited to fresh flowers.
The simplest option is to use a bobby pin to secure each flower in your hair. You can place the flowers behind your ear or around the edge of a bun or ponytail.

Another great tip is to weave your flowers into a halo-like accessory. It works best if you do this while the flowers still have some life in them. You can place the halo on top of your head and use bobby pins to keep it in place.

If you're a bigger fan of headbands, you can use your dried flowers for this as well. Use a basic headband and twist the flowers around it or attach them with craft glue. Be careful to let the glue dry and cure before you wear the headband.

7. Make Jewelry

If you're a crafter, you can get a bit more ambitious with your dried flowers. While there are specialized professionals who can press flowers into beads, there's another option you can do at home.

All you need to do is submerge the flower in epoxy resin. You can use a mold and shape the resin to the size and shape you want. It's easy to use this method to create necklace pendants with a unique twist.

8. Freshen Your Drawers

Some drawers seem to have a stale smell no matter how often you clean them. For a natural solution, try using your dried flowers to freshen the scent.

All you need to do is sprinkle a few petals in the back of your drawer. The scent will be just strong enough to freshen the drawer without being overwhelming.

Upcycling Your Dying Flowers

When they're fresh and supple, floral bouquets can celebrate a special occasion or put a smile on anyone's face. You don't have to toss out dead flowers as soon as they start losing their luster. The crafts and ideas above can help you get every bit of joy you can from your bouquet.

If it's time for a fresh new bouquet for your home or to give as a gift, shop our flower selection.

5 Reasons Why You Should Hire an Atlanta Florist Instead of Doing DIY

The biggest day of your life is happening soon. We know you're excited! You probably have everything planned out by now: the dress, the invites, the flower arrangements... But should you really try to take on floral arrangements yourself?

As much as you may love the idea, we strongly suggest that you don't. Floral arrangements take a lot of energy and experience, and if you go in thinking you can do it all yourself, you most likely will come out disappointed.

Here are 5 reasons why you should hire an Atlanta Florist to deal with this important wedding project.

We Know the Importance of Choosing the Right Flowers

Choosing the right flowers means a lot more than just lumping together a bunch of pretty colors.
There are hundreds of different flowers to choose from, and each one has a number of colors. This variety can quickly become overwhelming for any bride, and the last thing you need is to further muddle an already complicated wedding.

When you hire an Atlanta florist, we can show you all the different flowers you could choose from, leaving no stone un-turned. We can even tell you all about what each flower stands for, as well as its color.

For example, did you know that the Madonna lily is one of the oldest known lilies, dating back to more than 3,000 years ago? This flower is popular at many weddings and is used to showcase purity.
Color is also a very important part of symbolism. For example, the red flowers represent deep, passionate love, while white flowers symbolize pure love.

Steer clear of yellow ones, though - those represent dejection, and we're pretty sure you don't want that. There are a ton of other meanings behind each flower and its respective color, and the only way to know you're expressing the right tone is to talk to the experts.

We Can Handle the Upkeep

Did you really think flowers were just simple ornaments to stuff in a jar? Newsflash: you're wrong. It takes a lot to get flowers ready for the big day.

First off, when flowers are shipped they're packed into boxes - sometimes up to 25 stems per box. And depending on the size of your wedding, you could have a lot of boxes packed with a lot of flowers.

Each of the steams has to be unpacked, cut, cleaned of foliage, and placed in flower buckets full of water or special plant food.

After that, you have to wait for the flowers to open just the right amount before placing them in a floral cooler to keep them perfect for the big day.

Sounds like a lot of work, right? Now imagine trying to do all of this on your own.
Yikes.

Instead of trying to DIY wedding flowers, you should leave it up to a florist in Atlanta that has the tools and know-how to do the job right and give you the results you want without the headache.

Hire an Atlanta Florist to Save Time

If you haven't caught on yet, floral arrangements take a lot of time to pull off. Flowers can only stay fresh for a couple days after the stem has cut. That means you'll have to do everything we've described above with a turnaround period of around 24 to 48 hours.

The hours involved in prep time alone can cause you to go crazy, but you also have to factor in the time it'll take for planning as well as the time needed to make the bouquets, centerpieces and flower crowns. Realistically speaking, the flower arrangements needed for even the smallest weddings will require around eight to 15 hours working on the floral design. For a wedding with around 100 to 150 guests, you'll need around 35 hours of work.

And of course, for the big weddings, you will need a lot more. All of this is bound to wear you out, and when you finally do complete it, the results will be far from what you wanted. So at the end of the day, you just spent a bunch of your crucial time and effort to create something you don't even like.
You already have a ton of stuff that you have to take care of before the wedding, including dealing with family members and your own final preparations. The last thing you need is to run around messing with a bunch of flowers.

A florist would take care of all the time-consuming matters for you. We specialize in the upkeep and arrangement of flowers, so we know everything there is to know about our niche. We can do all of the work for you - including setting up for the wedding itself - and we can guarantee you will love the result much more than you would if you had to do everything yourself.

Handling Troubleshooting

Like with any business, floral arrangements can come with a whole host of its own problems. There's a good chance that you aren't ready to deal with them. For example, let's say that you've ordered some roses for the big day. That's great and all...except they don't arrive because the distributor or grower thinks that they were of low quality and won't ship them. What do you do?

Or, what about if the roses were shipped successfully, but there's a problem that keeps shipping from delivering them to you on time? What then? Or even worse, what if they were able to ship and they make it on time, but the flowers look simply hideous and can't be used. Throw in the fact that it's your wedding day. Do you know how to handle it?

Truth be told, probably not. And if you don't know how to handle the situation, you'll probably proceed to freak out. Panicking is not an option. When problems arise, you have to have the tools, the connections, and the know-how to make ends meet - because at the end of the day, you have a wedding to save.

These sort of mishaps are not uncommon. In fact, they're quite a bit more frequent than they should be, and it only makes matters worse that the turnaround is only two days (or even less). An Atlanta florist would have all the connections needed to make things happen, and fast, they have the know-how to get themselves through any bind, and they can do it all in the time crunch like a pro (because, well, they are).

Oh, and as a bonus, this ends up meaning a lot less freaking out on your end.

The Essence Of Design

After all of the delivering, troubleshooting, and upkeep (and pulling out a few strands of hair) the final thing to do is actually lay out the floral design.

This is where the all of the prep work finally comes into action. You get to place the flowers into a dream arrangement, the likes of which the world has never seen. And for some reason, it's just not working out.

There are few things worse than going through all of the trauma getting the flowers you need, only to completely ruin the design.

Trust us, it takes loads of technique to pull off floral arrangements, and most people just don't know what it takes to do it. But we do.

Flower arrangements are the essence of what we do. It's a big deal to us, and we work hard to master all of the design techniques. We use color, flower, space, and complexity to give you the design you deserve.

At the end of the day, it just makes sense to let an Atlanta florist do the job.

A Florist to Handle All of Your Needs

Now that you know it's best to hire an Atlanta florist, you need to know the right one to call. Peachtree Petals is the florist you need for all of your floral needs. From gifts, to wedding designs, to birthdays, and a whole host of other occasions, our flowers and designs are the best Atlanta has to offer.

Give us a call to find out more about how we can help you with your next flower arrangement. We look forward to hearing from you.