Hillary Flanders has long held a fascination with flowers.
Petals of vibrant colors play an integral role in her jewelry, which preserves these fragile flower components thanks to a scientific family secret she calls her “secret coat.”
“Flowers represent joy,” Flanders said. “They represent so many different emotions in people, which is one cool thing about it, because a lot of people will connect to this jewelry because they connect to certain flowers.”
Art has always played a large role in her life and in her family members’ lives, too, all of them longtime residents of the Sunapee area. Flanders’ grandmother developed the secret coat that she passed down to Flanders’ aunt, who, in turn, offered it to her. Flanders combined her interest in science with her passion for art to use the coat as a means of preserving petals, which she turns into statement pieces people can wear as earrings or necklaces.
“I discovered this whole process, so my biggest fear is that someone would figure it out and copy it. But it’s kind of cool. Nobody has yet,” said Flanders.
She studied nutritional science in college and then entered the healthcare industry but realized that it ultimately wasn’t the right place for her. Around the same time, she began making and selling granola under the name HeeBee Geebs — Hee Bee being a family nickname and the goddess of youth in Greek mythology. Then, in 2016, she transitioned from granola to jewelry but kept the same name for her business. A year later, she stepped away from healthcare and decided to prioritize her art.
“It’s very cool, I will say, to finally find my artistic niche,” she said. “For years and years, I did so many different types of art, and I loved them all, but they never felt like mine.”
In the past decade, she’s taken her family secret and experimented in different ways to hone her current process.
“I use different clear coats and different paints,” she said. “The paints don’t alter the color of the petals at all. And essentially, what everything does is it completely encapsulates the petals and it eliminates everything that normally breaks down organic materials.”
Not every flower lends itself to this genre of preservation, she noted. There’s a lot of trial and error in her work, but she’s always ready to rise to the challenge.
“Certain pigments are harder to work with than others, so I’ve definitely perfected some of the harder pigments, like the purples in sunflowers are hard, the pinks in sunflowers are hard. But I’ve spent a great deal of time making it so I can capture those colors incredibly vibrantly. And it’s super fun to think about ways that I can make my process better and make those pigments stronger and brighter,” Flanders said.
She first began selling her merchandise at local farmers markets before branching out to crafts fairs. Sunflower festivals, however, provide a unique opportunity. Each year, Flanders harvests sunflower petals, turns them into jewelry, and then sells that jewelry at the same farms from which she received the flowers the previous year.
Taking meticulous notes, Flanders makes sure to keep track of which petals came from which festivals. Sunflowers are her favorite flowers to work with, and beyond them, she sources her petals from different farmers.
In the fall, after sunflower festivals have finished for the season, she experiences what she calls “petal anxiety,” where she rushes to coat each petal at least once to preserve it and maintain the color and integrity of the flower. She returns to the petals later and applies numerous other coats.
“I’ve found through the years that every flower has its certain ideal point for me to coat their petals. So I’ve been learning so much through every step of the way with the certain flower types. And every flower has its certain best time to be plucked and coated. I’ve learned a lot, and it’s definitely helped me tweak and preserve way better than I did when I started,” she said.
In the winter months, Flanders works part-time at the Mount Sunapee resort to keep her income flowing. She also does custom orders, including for wedding jewelry, and gets busy again during the holidays, when customers are searching for gifts to purchase.
Eventually, Flanders dreams of owning her own shop, maybe in Newbury, where she lives, and making a full-time living from her flower creations.
“I want my art to inspire people to love nature, love the planet, love each other and just bring more sunshine into everything I love,” she said.
For more information on HeeBee Geebs, visit https://heebeegeebs.com/.
