MANSFIELD — Though she didn’t have fresh flowers at her own July 2020 wedding, Mansfield resident Kayla Smith helps other brides preserve their wedding bouquets through professional flower pressing.
Smith founded K Crafty Decor in 2019 and switched her focus to flower pressing under the name The Pressed Bloom in September. She started pressing flower petals at the age of 10 living in Bellville.
Teaching herself various drying and pressing techniques, Smith eventually learned how to press whole flowers and arranged them in frames, wreaths and resin jewelry.
“I started out really small, but now I can do a whole sunflower and whole roses,” she said.
Smith has four main techniques for preserving flowers: hang drying, air drying, a standard flower press and a heated flower press. She said the standard flower press is her favorite technique, but each of the four are suited for different types of flowers.
Smith is working full-time as a campaign manager at The Ohio State University and presses flowers in her home as a hobby business. She is booked for the next few months with multiple bridal bouquets and other orders.
“Weddings are probably my biggest market, but I have random orders too,” she said. “I’ve made pressed flower cats — I have a lady who is having me make her three for Christmas.”
Smith presses flowers from her own garden each year, and uses those flowers to arrange in the shape of cats or other animals for custom orders.
Brooklynn Crider, one of Smith’s friends, bought a pressed flower cat off Smith’s Etsy page. She said she wanted to buy it as a surprise.
“I had eyeballed it for a while, I thought it was really cute,” Crider said. “Eventually, when she had put it on her Etsy page, my boyfriend and I wanted to get it to help support her business.”
The framed pressed flower cat is now displayed in Crider’s living room. As Crider also lives in Mansfield, she said she could have organized local pickup with Smith but that would have spoiled the surprise.
Smith shipped resin earrings and a bracelet with Crider’s order, which Smith said she makes if she has extra flowers outside of the frame projects.
“I don’t like throwing the flowers away. It makes me so sad,” Smith said.
The Pressed Bloom’s average cost for wedding bouquets is $400, Smith said. She has dropped off orders where the recipient asks, “Are you sure you don’t want more money?”
“Honestly, I would do it for free. I love doing it that much,” Smith said, “but my husband’s like, ‘Your time is more valuable.’”
Smith organized a pressed flower frame as a wedding gift to her younger sister Tristan Anderson. Anderson said she had planned to pay for the frame but Smith told her it was a gift on her wedding day in June.
Smith arranged flowers from Anderson’s bridal shower around her wedding invitation to display at the wedding. Later, she arranged wedding roses in a separate frame.
“I had told her I wanted the custom order but then the day of, she told me it was a gift,” Anderson said. “I was emotional that day already.”
Growing up with Smith, Anderson said she remembers her pressing flowers at home and is happy to see her skills and business grow.
“I was talking to my parents the other day, and we were saying every time we call Kayla on the phone, she’s always working on flowers,” Anderson said.
One of Smith’s most time-consuming projects is reassembling a flower with adhesives if she has to deconstruct it to dry better. Smith said she sometimes has to do this with large flowers, like roses, that have full centers and can’t lay flat.
She also has floral tweezers for picking delicate petals.
“Some flowers are so crispy and thin that they can break very easily,” Smith said. “So trying to grab them with your hands isn’t always best. Violets are thinner than paper.”
When Smith receives a bouquet, she said she looks at the flowers in the worst shape and starts to press them first. If customers wait to ship their flowers until days after their wedding, she suggests buying floral foam and trying to ship them overnight — that way they’re as fresh as possible to press and she can juggle multiple bouquet orders if needed.
Active time organizing bouquets can be 50 hours or more for large orders, Smith said. She allows about eight weeks for drying time to get all of the moisture out of flowers and ensure they keep their shape and color in the frames.
Placing an order as far in advance as possible helps Smith manage her schedule and talk more with brides about the art pieces they want. She has an Etsy page, but is strictly working from her order form during the busy wedding season.
Outside of double-booked weekends to press wedding flowers, Smith is thinking about teaching flower pressing classes locally. With friends who want to press their own flowers, she said she tells them to make sure they have absorbent paper between the press or books.
“I feel like that’s where a lot of people mess up their flowers,” Smith said. “They don’t get all the moisture out. When you don’t get it out, that’s when it rots later or molds in the frame.”
While she does press flowers and ship orders as far as Texas, Smith said most of her wedding orders come from north central Ohio.
“The fact that people from out of state are shipping me their flowers and we haven’t even talked about price yet shocks me,” Smith said. “But there aren’t a lot of flower pressers left.”
Smith said she loves to see customers’ reactions when she drops off local orders.
“Even though I’m overly critical of my work, it’s so nice to see how much they love it and how excited they are to get their stuff preserved,” she said. “It’s cool to see them love something that I did and spent lots of time on.”
