After 12 years as a professional makeup artist, Nancy Dunson veered into a new creative career creating beautiful memories from people’s most special life events. Thanks to a pandemic that halted her full-time business doing makeup for weddings and special occasions, she took advantage of her many contacts in the wedding industry and paved a new path preserving floral arrangements from some of life’s most important moments.
Nancy’s first floral preservation piece was creating a memory for a friend who lost her mom to a long battle with Alzheimer’s. She took flowers from the service and dried and encased them in a resin block for her friend to display and cherish.
Nancy had used resin previously to seal other art projects, but floral preservation required much more delicacy and detail. She delved into the research, learning the proper products to use and methods for successfully drying flowers, learning temperature control for the resin, and practicing layering and placement with botanicals she bought from the store.
Working out of her home studio in Lagrange, Ga, each of Nancy’s creations has a 12–16 week turnaround from the time she receives the flowers. Local clients can arrange to meet her within two days of the ceremony, and those who live out of state receive specific shipping instructions to assure the flowers arrive in her hands as fresh and undamaged as possible.
The flower drying time alone can take two to three weeks, and once dry, they are carefully arranged piece by piece in a mold and surrounded with crystal-clear art resin. After curing, Nancy applies a harder finishing resin to ensure stability and longevity of the block, and her husband sands the piece to a shiny finish, ready to display in a special place in your home.
She has many shapes and sizes available including letters, prisms, hearts, and photo frames. And each order is special and individually curated.
“What’s better than having a wedding picture of you holding your flowers in a frame holding those flowers?” she says. “People spend so much money on these flowers, and I know they have photos, but it’s just about having something tangible in your hands. You can still sit and hold your flowers that you walked down the aisle with. I don’t think that there’s anything that can replace that. It’s just nice to have something tangible and beautiful to remind you of that day.”
For more information, visit: nancydunson.com, or see more of her work on Instagram: @nancydunsondesigns.