Episode 70: How Paper Florist Christina Funderburgh Built her Business So Quickly

Our Facebook admin Christina Funderburgh hasn’t been in the paper flower business long, but her artistry and business has taken off at an incredible pace. We chatted with her about how she has grown so successfully, so quickly.

You’ve jumped into the paper flower world. You know that you want to turn this hobby into a business. Where do you start? How long will it take?

Christina Funderburgh proves that you can build up a successful paper flower business without waiting years and years. She has always been a DIY, creative soul, so it felt natural for her to create flowers for her wedding even though the medium of paper was new to her. That was only a couple years ago, and since then her artistry as a paper florist has improved by leaps and bounds. She’s been able to use her artistic background to build her business, Fleur-ish Paper Flowers, into a distinctive brand that we know will only keep growing.

In our latest episode of Paper Talk, we chatted with Christina about how she did this. Most of the resources and tools that she’s used are easily accessible to everyone, including our Paper Talk Facebook group of which Christina is now an admin. As she said on the podcast, the Facebook group, as well as Quynh’s Posey Box, “completely changed my game for paper flowers.” We loved hearing that our goal to share, connect, and grow the paper florist industry has successfully helped her on her paper flower journey! 

“Learning techniques...from all these people that have built up this huge realm of tutorials that you guys didn’t have when you started. That has helped me progress really quickly.”

Here’s what you’ll learn when you tune in:

• How Christina makes her pictures distinctive to her brand. 

• How she progressed and built her business so quickly. 

• Why our Facebook group will elevate your artistry to new heights.

• Where to find supplies at affordable prices.

Christina Funderburgh has always had a passion for art and creating beautiful things that bring joy to others. As a crafter and artist from a young age, she has used nearly every medium under the sun to paint, sculpt, and make jewelry. It was that passion for creating that led her to obtain a bachelor’s degree in multimedia design.

Shortly after graduation, she got engaged and dove head-first into wedding planning. The sticker shock of wedding flowers paired with her penchant for DIY flair pushed her towards making her own wedding flowers out of pearlized paper and book pages. They were a massive hit at the wedding and prompted a friend to commission her to make a book page bouquet for her upcoming wedding.

This sparked something in her—the desire to create long-lasting keepsakes that would never wilt. Previously, she would rarely buy flowers for her home and urged others not to purchase flowers for her as they would wilt so fast, and that decay always made her a little sad. She said, “I’ve never particularly had a green thumb, but by making paper flowers, I can enjoy them all year round with zero maintenance.”

After a year and a half of working with text weight paper, she wanted to make something more true-to-life, and that is what drew her to crepe paper. Her works are crafted from premium European crepe paper and fine art mediums. From single stem flowers and home décor pieces, to bouquets and full floral arrangements, these make great gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, housewarming, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, and so much more!

Follow Christina on Instagram @fleurishpaperflowers, Facebook, her website and Etsy.