5 Wonderful Winter Flower Bouquets with Seasonal Blooms

Winter is not traditionally known as a time of flowers in full bloom -- which is why winter flowers, with their sturdy nature and novelty, are so highly prized! When it is bitterly cold outside, there are snowflakes next to the front door, and when you simply cannot go outside because it seems too much like a fight to survive, winter flowers help bring the outdoors to you. Today we are checking out some gorgeous bouquets that use in-season flowers over the winter period and capture the spirit of the season.

This flower bouquet is called Very Vogue, and is a great way to visually warm up the house over the winter holidays. It is specially designed for Christmas, as you can tell with both sprays of holly itself, and Christmas colors all through the bouquet. It includes amaryllis and holly, which both bloom in winter.

Not quite so much of a traditional holiday look -- a great all-around winter flower bouquet, either for yourself or a friend. Ranunculus and waxflower feature in this bouquet along with the standards roses and lisianthus; the ranunculus and waxflower are available throughout winter.

The colors in this Citrus Sunshine bouquet are made from winter flowers, but anticipate the arrival of spring with every frond and furl! The Bells of Ireland are a major feature -- they are a traditional winter flower. The pompom button chrysanthemums are gorgeous also!

Poinsettia is a traditional winter flower and also the birth flower for December. The legend says that a small girl picked a bunch of pretty weeds on Christmas day, for lack of any money to make a more substantial offering -- and sat them on the doorstep of her grandparent's home. They were transformed in a Christmas miracle into beautiful red blooming flowers -- poinsettias. You can see the red bouquet below - white blooms are rarer, but red can sometimes seem more festive.

Keep the Memories: How to Preserve Your Wedding Flower Bouquets

While your bride's bouquet may be gracing one of your friend's or relative's mantelpieces right now, there are often piles gorgeous flowers left over from a wedding. You can take the figurines from the top of the cake, bring home your namecards from the table, and take as many photos as you like … but there's nothing quite like having something living from the day of your wedding to keep that spirit of love, commitment, hope and togetherness. Preserving your wedding flowers is a beautiful way to do this -- we show you how to achieve it at home!

Drying your wedding flowers

You can do this to your wedding flowers in bulk -- as long as you have enough wardrobe space, there is usually no limit on the number of flowers you can preserve by drying them. Just remember that you might want some vase space for fresh flower bouquets at some stage in the future! Dry your flowers by:

• Pegging them individually upside down from clothes hangers
• Alternatively, lay them in a drying agent like silica or borax
• Carefully put them back together as a bouquet when they are completely dry

Pressing your wedding flowers

You probably have some experience with this method of preserving flowers -- almost every little girl in the world has done it at some stage! It's simple:

• Collect your flowers and place between two sheets of paper, preferably not printed
• Place the two sheets of paper inside a large, heavy book
• Leave for a few days, depending on how humid the weather is
• Once your flowers are pressed, framing them is a lovely way to keep them

Freeze Drying Your Wedding Flowers

This generally has to be done by professionals, and has quite a charge associated. It does help preserve your wedding flowers with most of their original color and shape, however, and the more flowers you want to freeze dry the more cost effective the process is.