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January 25, 2026
8 × 10 in. Shadow Box
Oven-Dried Flowers, Eucalyptus & Mixed Botanicals
Original / 1 of 1
At this point, I was still figuring out exactly how I wanted to preserve my bouquets.
This bouquet started with purple flowers. I chose them because purple and lavender tones felt calm, peaceful, introspective, and a little dreamy. I wanted something softer around me. The eucalyptus added to that feeling of healing and renewal, while the little white flowers brought some lightness and simplicity into everything.
Then I decided to experiment.
Instead of hanging this bouquet upside down and patiently letting it dry, I put the flowers in the oven.
I cooked them.
Not exactly what I was going for.
The flowers that went into the oven were purple and delicate. What came out looked completely different. The heat pulled away much of their original color, turning the purple into these muted browns, oranges, and almost burnt-gold tones.
At first, I could have looked at that as ruining the bouquet.
But that's exactly why I kept it.
I was trying to preserve something by speeding up the process, and in doing that, I completely changed the thing I was trying to preserve. There's something strangely relatable about that. Sometimes we're so eager to hold onto a feeling, fix something, or get to the next version of ourselves that we interfere with the process.
And sometimes we cook the shit out of the flowers.
But they're still beautiful.
Actually, I think they're more interesting because I know what they looked like before. The purple isn't really visible anymore, but I know it was there. The calmness I associated with that original bouquet didn't disappear just because the flowers changed color.
The mistake became part of their story.
That's also why I like keeping the date and my signature visible inside these pieces. January 25, 2026 wasn't just the day I preserved some flowers. It marks an experiment. I tried something, it didn't turn out how I imagined, and instead of throwing it away, I turned the result into art.
That's pretty much how I create in general.
I experiment. I mess things up. I change direction. I keep going.
Sometimes preserving something changes it. Sometimes the mistake is what makes it worth preserving.
And sometimes you just cook the flowers.
January 25, 2026
8 × 10 in. Shadow Box
Oven-Dried Flowers, Eucalyptus & Mixed Botanicals
Original / 1 of 1
At this point, I was still figuring out exactly how I wanted to preserve my bouquets.
This bouquet started with purple flowers. I chose them because purple and lavender tones felt calm, peaceful, introspective, and a little dreamy. I wanted something softer around me. The eucalyptus added to that feeling of healing and renewal, while the little white flowers brought some lightness and simplicity into everything.
Then I decided to experiment.
Instead of hanging this bouquet upside down and patiently letting it dry, I put the flowers in the oven.
I cooked them.
Not exactly what I was going for.
The flowers that went into the oven were purple and delicate. What came out looked completely different. The heat pulled away much of their original color, turning the purple into these muted browns, oranges, and almost burnt-gold tones.
At first, I could have looked at that as ruining the bouquet.
But that's exactly why I kept it.
I was trying to preserve something by speeding up the process, and in doing that, I completely changed the thing I was trying to preserve. There's something strangely relatable about that. Sometimes we're so eager to hold onto a feeling, fix something, or get to the next version of ourselves that we interfere with the process.
And sometimes we cook the shit out of the flowers.
But they're still beautiful.
Actually, I think they're more interesting because I know what they looked like before. The purple isn't really visible anymore, but I know it was there. The calmness I associated with that original bouquet didn't disappear just because the flowers changed color.
The mistake became part of their story.
That's also why I like keeping the date and my signature visible inside these pieces. January 25, 2026 wasn't just the day I preserved some flowers. It marks an experiment. I tried something, it didn't turn out how I imagined, and instead of throwing it away, I turned the result into art.
That's pretty much how I create in general.
I experiment. I mess things up. I change direction. I keep going.
Sometimes preserving something changes it. Sometimes the mistake is what makes it worth preserving.
And sometimes you just cook the flowers.