20 Stylish, Designer-Approved Ways to Decorate With Dried Flowers

Remember that time you thumbtacked a corsage between posters on your bedroom wall and it shriveled into the formal version of those little cinnamon brooms grocery stores sell in the fall? If that’s the image “decorating with dried flowers” conjures for you, go ahead and discard it (and maybe check that corsage for spiders, if it’s still hanging around).

If we might sound woo-woo for a moment, drying and displaying flowers as long-term decor is all about setting an intention. Blooms look sloppy, kitschy or the-bad-kind-of-spooky when they dry out by default; if you bring them into your home with a specific application in mind, whether they’re already preserved or you’re going to guide them into a dried state, they can add lasting aesthetic oomph to arrangements of all kinds. Want proof (and projects)? We’ve got plenty.

Capturing the spirit of an arrangement and event by deconstructing them a bit — that is, by selecting and pressing just a few representatives of each type of flower and species of greenery, then incorporating them as texture around a memento related to them — is an effective way of evoking an aesthetic without preserving every last bit of it. Create a display like this one by drying and arranging smaller sprigs along with individual petals from larger blooms.

Cultivate a contemporary-cottage look with an upcycled vessel that’s taken on a patina; here, a half-flattened, well-oxidized canister does the job nicely. Layer in dried components that add height (curly willow branches), texture (dried cotton stems, both pillowy and angular) and color (dried hydrangeas), then congratulate yourself on diversifying your door-display game.

To create a sculptural, monochromatic display like this one (by Alex W. Crowder of New York City’s Field Studies Flora), look to your own yard, local parks and wild spaces for inspiration. Wild alliums and compound flowers like Queen Anne’s lace dry into dramatic, leggy stems like the ones you see here; species like goldenrod and milkweed, in turn, are wonderfully textural.

Sure, you could just purchase and hang a ready-made lavender wreath (and they’re lovely), but where’s the fun and fresh-from-the-field fragrance in that? If you’re itching to attempt a decidedly satisfying DIY, grow or buy fresh lavender (which is typically available in bunches at farmers’ markets in late spring and summer), then anchor it to and build around a wreath form, wire or grapevine to create a monochromatic, gorgeous-in-all-seasons herbal installation like this one. (Pro tip: Lavender is much easier to work with before it's dry and brittle.)

Sold fresh as filler for formal bouquets and dried in both their natural white form and dyed every hue imaginable, diminutive star flowers are ideal, textural toppers for stemmed vases like this one. Here, the little blooms’ petals both echo the scale of the detailing on the vase’s body and offer a bit of contrast with its hard, gleaming surface. (Psst: Star flowers also pair beautifully with funky antique goblets and trophies. They’re just the thing for flea-market finds, is what we’re saying.)

Here, spiky dried fan palms, sprays of craspedia and larger, silky-looking dried white straw flowers top a handmade ceramic Balinese water jug. Building a dried arrangement to accent a large piece like this one is a bit like plotting out a container garden: Reach for fronds that will give you height at the rear of your display, then vary sizes, shapes and textures with the blooms you choose to fill in the foreground.

While cramming a mantel in one’s living room with a dozen casual dried arrangements might be a bit much, a maximalist display like this one is good fun in a guest bedroom or home office. To create just a hint of cohesion that anchors the array, stick to clear glass vessels — vases, French canning jars, even jam jars can be pressed into service — and vary their heights and sizes to keep the eye moving.

Speaking of flea-market finds, consider how capably this very well-weathered frame converts to a hanging apparatus for fall leaves. The same rustic setup would also suit sprigs of wildflowers, or even a small bouquet: simply center the largest arrangement or specimen of your choice on the line and stick to an odd number of pins.

This budget- and beginner-friendly DIY extends the season indefinitely and creates luminaries that can accent the last outdoor parties of the year or create a warm glow at the center of a holiday table. The trickiest part of the whole process? Remembering to pick and press the flowers of your choice beneath a few heavy books a week before you’ll need your lanterns, since they’ll need time to dry before you paste them together.

Sometimes a host-to-be wants to incorporate pressed flowers in their festivities and doesn’t have a week to wait for them to flatten, and we respect the spontaneity of that. It’s worth noting that you can microwave flowers to dry and press them instead — true story — and then continue on with the craft of your choice just as soon as you like. Might we suggest creating coasters like these with glass photo frames and using them for special-occasion table settings?

For a darkly romantic or spooky-season accent that feels elegant rather than kitschy, create a dimensional display that forgoes glass and “floats” its florals at the center of an unbacked, upcycled frame. Here, a bit of floral wire hidden by the wide silk ribbon binding the bouquet has a small hanging loop at the back; once you’ve used one nail to position and hang your frame, a second nail at its center will anchor the dried flowers within it.

Centered on a live rubber plant perched on a miniature rattan armchair and a photography book, this assemblage combines spiky little succulents, a trailing string of hearts, bleached and dried baby’s breath and dried star flowers. The cool, dark greenery gives the arrangement weight against the warm, rust-colored wall; the ethereal dried flowers, in turn, feather out its edges.

To create an on-trend, quiet-luxury-lake-house display like this one, choose a wide, low vessel with a short, narrow neck, then fan out a handful of a single variety of dried wildflower. Trimmed to size, sprays of dried grasses like Lagurus, pampas and canary grass — all of which are readily available at craft stores, if you can’t actually stroll a field in the service of styling your coffee table — can all develop a similarly satisfying look.

Less-is-more, California-contemporary chic, in turn, favors dried bouquets in minimalistic arrangements like this one, where a spa-style bath suite’s only adornment is a gathering of the sort of botanicals one might use in a soaking treatment. To get this look, bind your bouquet with a few tight twists of natural twine, knotted and trimmed against the wall and hung on a small nail.

Preserved flowers can also give feminine spaces a hint of wickedness, as in this bath suite decorated for a girl who favors gothic elements. Here, larger flowers in rich, warm colors are gathered into irregular mixed bouquets and hung with swoops of high-quality ribbon; this look is all about unfussy indulgence.

Harvested at their peak and preserved with care, hydrangea have nearly the same shape and color in dried form as they do when they’re fresh; don’t tell the other flora this, but they might be the ultimate dried botanicals. Make the most of these sturdy, stunning blooms by composing a wreath in just a few tones and many textures; here, green and blush tones come in and out of focus in petals of differing sizes and shapes.

Suitable for fresh and faux pumpkins alike, this whimsical technique uses decoupage glue to seal dried and pressed blooms on a gourd of your choice. Depending on the patterns and prunings you choose, these creations could anchor Halloween decor, remain in service through Thanksgiving, and — okay, Christmas and Easter pumpkins aren’t really a thing, but you’ve got options, is the point.

When a fresh, mixed arrangement begins to lose its vitality, why, its second life is just about to begin. Separate components like fill, greenery and varieties of blooms from one another, gathering like with like, then redisplay those elements in vases that complement but aren’t identical to one another.

Artificial botanicals like the banksia and button vine on the left side of this arrangement partner well with the dowel-mounted lotus seed pods and dyed pampas sharing their vase; these shapes, hues and textures look fabulous together, and that’s all the justification they need.