How many of us have carefully strung up our favorite flowers in a closet with the hopes of preserving them as a dried bouquet? Or maybe you’ve neatly pressed them between the pages of a book only to find them scattered into pieces when you went to retrieve them—or maybe you forgot to retrieve them at all!

Well thanks to Hazelwood resident, Teresa Rinne, also known as The Flower Whisperer and founder of The Floral Preservation Co., those days of frustration can be a thing of the past.

Rinne has developed a beautiful DIY solution to alleviate the common problems associated with preserving flowers, that allows users to contain the vibrancy, structure, and disposition of their cherished floral memories into timeless works of art.

Developing and perfecting her popular product took the entrepreneur around two months of trial and error. She has created many pieces but her favorite flowers to preserve are hydrangeas. “I love hydrangeas…so colorful and elegant,” remarked Rinne.

She also spoke of a powerful moment in her career when she was able to add a little light for a family who were going through a time of darkness.

“I was able to preserve flowers for a young boy who tragically passed, leaving the family devastated…I was honored to give them back a lasting keepsake of their son. It had been three weeks since the funeral and the day a friend-of-a-friend reached out to help them with their flowers, they were a day away from throwing them away. This, to date, has been my best and most humbling preserving experience.”

Teresa even contacted celebrity event planner, David Tutera, to be the line’s brand ambassador and the pair’s goal is to have a preservation kit in every household in the world. “David thinks our product is magical,” said Rinne.

This patent-pending kit has landed on Amazon’s Top 20 New Releases and is sold additional on Etsy and the company’s website, TheFloralPreservationCo.com. It can protect and secure fresh cut flowers and wildflowers…and can even bring already dried flowers back to former glory!

The kit contains everything you need to capture, seal, and commemorate those special occasion or milestone flowers in your life and includes microwave directions, quick dry papers, reusable drying boards, holding clips, wrapping cord, a special finishing spray, and shaping tweezers.

Also available in the product line is a diffuser to speed up the drying process, floral keepsake album consisting of air-tight sleeves to store the dried flowers, an additional 4 X6 sleeve for a photo of the event/memory, and a notecard to journal about the special moment. More new and innovative products are coming to the line in the future as well.

Rinne also notes that if you can’t start your preservation immediately, to put the flowers in water and place them in the fridge so they keep fresh until ready. Can someone say, “Cool Christmas present?!”