Kristine Smith recently created Color of Kentucky Floral Design, a local home-based studio that specializes in a wide array of floral arrangements. What began as an interest soon transitioned into a hobby has now become a business.
Smith attended the Floral Design Institute in Portland, Oregon, before moving to North Carolina to hone her skills at the Cape Fear Botanical Garden.
Color of Kentucky offers flowers and arrangements for any occasion and customers can arrange for a “pick-up” location or delivery.
“I had friends and family that were interested in my work and would ask me for arrangements,” Smith said. “Most recently, I’ve started creating funeral arrangements and that’s going well, so I decided to make a business out of it.”
Smith is originally from Bainbridge, Ohio, and graduated from Western Kentucky University with a degree in Environmental and Sustainable Development. She attributes her time at WKU and her passion for nature as two key motivators behind her work.
“Environmental and sustainable development definitely plays a role in floral designs — it’s all about being in nature and understanding how things interact with their surroundings and what their likes and dislikes are,” she said. “I have a greater appreciation for floral work above just aesthetics.”
Smith will create arrangements for her first wedding in December of 2022 with hopes to grow from the experience and further infiltrate the wedding industry.
Color of Kentucky also offers silk arrangements for people with allergies, and caters to cemeteries that prefer headstone saddles and vase arrangements with silk flowers. Smith also has aspirations to begin hosting floral party nights, a concept that hasn’t quite reached Owensboro yet.
“Eventually I would like to host a floral party night where I would go to someone’s house with pre-cut flowers and a vase for each attendee and teach them how to do their own basic floral design,” Smith said. “I’ve done several demonstrations in the past and people seem to enjoy that.”
Smith is an outside-the-box thinker that sets no limits on where her floral designs might take her. Her designs are typically less traditional and strive to imitate nature.
“If someone can think it — I’ll find a way to do it,” she said. “My pieces mimic nature and are a little less traditional. They’re still going to have that color pop which is the basis for our name — you can see every color in nature right here in Kentucky.”
One of her biggest hits locally is wearable designs that can range from halos and crowns to wristlets and rings. She also specializes in floral body jewels where it looks like the flower is stuck to one’s body. She said these offerings are great for homecomings and proms so that attendees aren’t stuck holding their arrangement all night.
For more information about Color of Kentucky, search them on Facebook and Instagram, or e-mail them at [email protected]
