Getting Creative (and Festive) with Dried Flowers

A Guide to Embracing Christmas Through an Eco-Conscious Lens

For brands who are staunch in their commitment to a more conscious, sustainable and waste-free approach to commerce, Christmas can pose challenging terrain – typically, on behalf of the consumer, the bigger picture can be harder to grapple with when the primary focus becomes hunkering down with family and friends, embracing small traditions. As habit-abiding citizens, we’re loyal to our default settings.

As retailers, it’s our responsibility to switch spendthrift products out to enable customers to embrace a ‘waste not, want not’ perspective more effortlessly. As Yasmina Stitou touches upon in her perceptive article ‘Of Course We Don’t Care, We’re Tired’ for MediaCat magazine in 2023, “Brands need to make it easy for us to make purchasing decisions that ensure the well-being of others and/or the earth”. When you’re down on the ground, amidst flashing lights, promotional highways and endless replays of ‘Fairytale of New York’, it’s difficult to make more informed choices. As consumers ourselves, we know this, so it’s of paramount importance that we make these decisions on behalf of our customers by switching out the products for them and highlighting the benefits through informative merchandising.

But this is a two-sided coin. If you’re a small business owner or independent retailer who develops anxiety about sticking to core values amidst a hyper-commercialised season, considering repurposing products can in equal breaths satiate you artistically and financially, through the costs accrued when you take stock of what you already have and pay it forward for another use.

Tip: repurposing products can be a satisfying way to cut back on costs whilst maintaining creativity and offering something different.

Throughout the year, we sell thousands of bunches of sole flower species and watch from the sidelines as a world of artistry flourishes before our very eyes. Many of our customers put their taps of creativity on free flow for 365 days (after all, resourcefulness is for life, not just for Christmas), embracing the innate malleability and versatility of the products we have on offer – think bouquets, wreaths, seasonal displays and myriad other expressions of inventiveness and imagination.

For inspiration beyond this blog post, just take a look at the array of British-grown and sustainably sourced varieties we have on offer at LSF and consider it a world of craftsmanship at your fingertips: https://www.lsfwholesale.co.uk/product-category/dried-flowers/

It’s with this in mind that we want to inspire you to think outside the box this Christmas – beyond the trialled and tested trinkets that appear in storefronts year on year – and toy with the idea of using what you already have or typically buy to create something that is by both accounts unique and conscious of shifting tides, be it a product or micro-experience. This doesn’t have to be anything big; everything we go on to reference here can be made sans any fancy facilities or in-house floristry skills. Whether you trade from a physical storefront or leverage the notorious accessibility of e-commerce marketplaces, the impact remains the same: you can create a quaint and unique experience for your customers, one that conveys homely expression and purposeful frugality.

Tip: getting creative with the products you have can add a touch of the personal to an otherwise monetary transaction. It shows the customer you care about the finer details.

On that note, here’s some inspiration for how to repurpose dried flower stock and scraps from our team at LSF:

Mini Wreath Decoration

Finished a floristry project or the lucky keeper of some loose stems? These mini wreath decorations incorporate some of our favourites in the LSF range: red Phalaris, natural Lagurus and luscious Ruscus. This little creation was a resounding hit amongst the team, putting a novel spin on the staple bauble.

Dried Flower Bauble

We do still love the bauble; after all, what’s a tree without one? However, our team at LSF thought it such a shame that so many of them were hollow, so we did what we do best when an otherwise lacklustre product needs a little spruce up: we filled them with dried flowers. These open-front baubles were calling for some natural Lagurus, but much like a little terrarium, we can’t think of a flower that wouldn’t look good styled like this. Consider our brighter coloured Helichrysum, Phalaris – or even some eucalyptus.  

Endearing Posy

Posies make an appealing adornment to a Christmas card or small gift – perfect for the customer that’s shopping for an acquaintance or wants to add a touch of something else to their main gift. Easy to make and alluring to display, we recommend you put these next to your seasonal card/gift wrap range or even by the till.

Bespoke Gift Wrap Service

Dried flowers are inherently ornamental – used aesthetically to enhance displays and decorate – but this association is fluid, and gift wrapping is no less an art in itself. To give ours an edge, we adorned the front with some dyed red Phalaris and eucalyptus, the latter notorious for style and scent.

If you offer this as a service, you already have the upper hand: a study by Perspectus Global in 2022 found that 51% of British people really don’t enjoy wrapping gifts and 22% feel embarrassed when their attempt didn’t go as well as they would’ve liked. Together, we can show them the way: simply tucking a dried flower behind a bow nook of ribbon reaps dividends in style and taste. Why not loop through some thread and opt for a bauble effect? Again, something different. It’s the small things that make you stand out from the crowd.