Mad About Flowers- In Conversation With Paper Bea

With April in full swing and florals brightening the home and garden, we have decided to share a bit more about one of our favourite stockists. We have been lucky enough to stock Paper Bea since almost day one, her lovely products form part of our BBCT charity gift boxes. While the bee seed packets help flowers flourish in the garden, her beautiful paper flowers bring beauty and colour into the home. At a busy time of year for Paper Bea (Wedding Season!), we managed to have a quick chat with the lovely Helen about how she started and her passion for everything floral

When and how did Paper bea start? What influenced you to make paper flowers and seed packets? Paper Bea was launched in 2013, at the time I really wasn’t happy and a chance viewing of a video by Dr Alan Watts inspired me to look for a change. Dr Watts asks “what would you do if money were no object?” He talks about choosing to do something you love, getting so good at this that you can start charging money for it because if you like something there’s a good chance other people will too. I love growing flowers, collecting the seeds & starting the process all over again. Both the seed packets and paper flowers were born from friends making suggestions “can you make me this? You should sell flowers too” ideas snowballed and developed to the products you see today.

What are your main influences when you create a new product? The seed packet designs are taken from original paintings by myself, I have sketch pads full of doodles and lots of collected images of real flowers, dried petals, colours etc Whilst the paper flowers are created quite organically, I’ll save images of the flowers I want to make but also study a real flower, how it is formed, what size are the petals. When constructing a flower I find that I’ll cut and shape the petals throughout the process, so every flower is completely unique.

What has been your most challenging creation, so far? It is often the most simple of flowers that are the hardest, Peonies are quite the challenge!

What is your favourite flower (Real and your own)? I absolutely love Cherry Blossom but also love Peonies, Magnolia is a favourite and Anemones are divine, Poppies and Roses are definitely on the list – I have lots of favourites! My own though, the new Ranunculus- I really struggled to make these but patience prevailed!

What is your favourite flower to make? It definitely has to be the roses but I love making the Eucalyptus, I could do this (and do) for hours!

What is your favourite thing to do on a warm spring day? It would include my little family of my husband and my two dogs, There is a hill opposite the house, to get to it you have to cross a river, walk through the woods, across a bridge cut from the rock and climb upwards through the path through the trees, once at the top the view is spectacular – when you stand up there you feel like you could accomplish anything! A morning up there and a afternoon of pottering around the garden with a good cup of tea is just perfect!

This month we have linked with the wonderful Paper Bea, for our April competition. The lucky winner will win a posy of flowers, please check out our Instagram to find out more. Remember 10% from every sale of our bee products goes to BBCT charity (including Helen’s lovely seed packets). And to celebrate our link with Paper Bea this week, Home of Juniper will give 10% to BBCT from any Paper Bea product bought from our website until the 26th April.

Love and Hugs

La Juniper Team

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