Business owner, mama of 2, and flower thief, Kelly Jean, fell in love with flower pressing in 2018 when she took a flower pressing class to create nursery art for her first child, Holland. Soon after the class, she purchased her first press and brought it along on trips and hikes. After filling multiple shoe boxes full of pressed botanicals, her husband suggested in 2022 that she did something with them. From there, My Friend Kelly was born, which she claims is a trick to get everyone to refer to her as their friend. "I hope one day you say "my friend Kelly..." and you mean it!"
Kelly states that there "is no limit to the colors and texture found in nature," which constantly sparks her creativity. For the most part, she tends to focus more on animals, but she also dabbles in creating scenes, buildings, and people made out of pressed flowers. She also does commission work, and loves using flowers people bring for her to use. Kelly tends to surprise herself with what she is able to come up with and design thanks to nature, which she gives 90% of the credit for her artwork towards.
Her two sons, Holland (4) and Atlas (1) love "creating their own pressed flower art and exploring nature" alongside Kelly. She spends a lot of time with her sons gardening and playing in the backyard. She is able to spend time with her sons while curating botanicals for her products. Kelly also loves walking with them in their neighborhood and "making discoveries at places like Burden Gardens." Kelly has been a self-pronounced flower thief since she was at least 7 years old. She learned at that age that picking flowers on someone's private property is criminal trespassing, "a friend and I picked every tulip out of a neighbor's garden and she called the police... Whoops." She jokes that she has some self control now when collecting flowers around town.
Kelly is a part of the Local Pop-Up community and are at most of the last Saturday of the month markets at Electric Depot! When you can't find her there, you can find some of her press floral arrangement prints at Local Supply.
She also just hosted her own workshop at Local Supply where she taught the flower pressing and preservation process. The attendees made their own pressed flower arrangements to take home. Don't worry if you missed this one, because she will be back on August 12 at 11AM to host another one! Sign up through localsupplybr.com ✨
