Summer’s Ending – But First, SHOW ME SOME SUNFLOWERS!

Yes, please! Keepsake loves our sunflowers! So happy, so sunny, so versatile! And the quintessential flower of summer!

Sunflowers (or helianthus) are often seen as a symbol of faith an devotion.  In Buddhism and other Eastern religions, these vibrant yellow blooms are thought to be sacred, representing spiritual enlightenment.  They are a symbol of positivity and hope and their ability to turn toward the sun is seen as a metaphor for the human quest for enlightenment.

We all well know Vincent Van Gogh’s famous Sunflowers painting, right? Van Gogh wrote that his Sunflower paintings communicated gratitude.  The sunflower’s name comes from the Greek Helios (sun) and Anthos (flower).  The wild sunflowers is native to North America but the commercialization of the plant took place in Russia.  Only recently did the sunflower plant return to North American to become a cultivated crop.  In Greek Mythology, the origin of the sunflower centers around the Sun God, Apollo and the water nymph, Clytie.  In a story of unrequited love (aren’t all great love stories like this?), Clytie adored Apollo and spent her days gazing skyward in the hope he may look down upon her.

Sunflowers, in any size or variety, preserve beautifully.  They often do require a bit of restoration after a day of use in a bouquet, but the Keepsake Design Team has that covered.  Sunflowers require a bit of TLC during the dehydration process.  Flower petals are much less meaty than the center of the bloom. Therefore, the dehydration process must be carefully watched.  Once through with the dehydration process, the flowers must be completely dry, but not “too dry.”  So for a flower with two VERY different thicknesses, this is a tricky part of the preservation process.  Keepsake Floral’s preservationists repeatedly check on the sunflowers during dehydration to ensure that all parts of the flower are drying equally and efficiently.  There are very few other varieties of flower that have such a dichotomy and that require such pre-design care.

Prior to including sunflowers in design work, Keepsake designers must secure loose and fallen petals. Sunflowers tend to lose many of their delicate petals upon dehydration.  We’re used to that.  So our designers need to adhere all fallen petals and reinforce all others to ensure they stay put.  And of course, this must be done very meticulously so our special floral adhesive doesn’t show.  Probably the most painstaking part of the process!  But, the results are welllll worth it!

The color of sunflower petals deepen in color, often the red tones of the petals coming forward.  Keepsake’s artists color the petals as close in yellow tone as possible, depending on the flowers’ original coloring.  As is standard practice at Keepsake, we require our clients (whenever possible) to provide us with a photo of the flowers on the day of the actual event.  The centers of these blooms are colored separately, and the green stem, guardian petals and backing also painted.  And then all are re-touched with an air brush prior to framing to ensure a natural shading and depth to the petals and the flower as a whole.

When using sunflowers within a keepsake, no matter what keepsake, our designers must always secure the sunflowers securely, which is a bit different for these particular blooms as they are rather heavy.  Because of their shape and their additional weight (due to that meaty center), this flower variety requires additional methods of attaching the blooms within our keepsakes so they’ll stay put during shipping and over time.  Sunflowers are often so large that we have to creatively layer them behind other flowers and utilize only parts of sunflowers behind other sunflowers to create an illusion of depth within the confines of our keepsakes.

With more than 70 species of sunflowers, and many varieties with those species, you’d think that they all might require different levels of care when preserving and utilizing in keepsakes.  This is true to an extent.  But most sunflowers, regardless of the variety and regardless of the size require similar careful handling, watchful dehydration and meticulous reconstruction.   And all the work that we do with these vibrant beauties is well worth it. The use of sunflowers in our keepsakes makes our keepsakes pop and adds to the beauty, excitement and vibrance of our keepsakes, year after year.. challenging to prep and to display in a beautiful way, but sooo awesome for decades to come!