Bohemian Bloom: The Magic, and Emotional Resonance, of Paper Flowers

When Tana Leigh Gerber first started making hand-crafted paper flowers, it was purely a matter of solving a problem by following an age-old adage: If you want something done right, do it yourself.

In the months leading up to her 2011 wedding, she had been searching for a unique and special touch for her big day, and wasn’t getting anywhere. After fruitless hours spent on the internet looking for inspiration, she decided she wanted paper flowers — but something elevated from the 1980s prom-esque, tissue paper and pipe cleaners version that might come to mind for most.

“I really wanted to put my own take on an art form,” she said.

Did she ever.

Gerber, who splits her time between New York City and a home in Hampton Bays, never could have predicted that her personal wedding DIY project would turn into a thriving business, but it has.

Her company, Bohemian Bloom, has become a sensation. She has many high-end — and several famous — clients, including, most notably, former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama. She was commissioned by the Obamas for the White House holiday decor in 2013.

Gerber described how she approached her first official project: her own.

“I bought a bouquet of flowers from the local bodega, tore the flowers apart, and figured out how to engineer and create 3D works of art that guests could take home,” she said.

Gerber created her own wedding bouquet, and also made paper flowers for her wedding cake. They were a hit with guests, and by 2012, pictures of the flowers had gone viral, showing up on Pinterest boards and in The Knot, the premier national wedding magazine, and even in the New York Daily News.

“All of a sudden, I had people researching me and trying to hunt me down,” Gerber said.

Gerber decided to harness that demand and create her business, mainly, she said, because she had enjoyed the process of creating her own flowers so much, and had felt sad when it was over.

Bohemian Bloom quickly became a runaway success. Gerber has been hired by big name companies like Harry Winston and Warner Brothers, and has completed commissions for plenty of big name actors and celebrities (although she can’t say who).

“It’s such a joy, because every single product is different, and every client is unique,” she said. “I haven’t had one commission that’s the same.”

It’s not too much of a surprise that Gerber wound up where she is, given her background as a creative and artistic individual. She describes herself as having “grown up in the arts,” and spent years involved in everything from musical theater to dance, acting in television and film, and even painting. When she was “thrown a curveball,” she said, after dealing with health issues, Gerber briefly left the artist life behind, taking a job in the corporate world for the stability of health insurance coverage.

“That was a ride,” she said, with a laugh, of what turned out to be a brief career pivot.

When Gerber became pregnant with the first of her four children before her wedding, she decided she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, and devote her energies to that pursuit.

Bohemian Bloom has become the perfect way for Gerber to find that unicorn every working mom searches for — a job that allows for a healthy balance between work and family.

Of course, the demands of parenting and working still come with challenges, but Gerber said she’s benefiting from both.

“This really has provided such an outlet,” she said, “and such a way for me to have an identity outside of being a mother.”

Despite being in high demand with clients from around the country, Gerber has stayed true to her methods, and her art.

“I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to paper flowers,” she said.

There is great variation to her work in terms of shapes, colors, configurations, but the raw materials have remained the same, and simple.

“My signature look is really just one type of paper, and an Exacto knife and a cup of coffee and hot glue gun,” she said, adding that every flower is created entirely by hand, and mainly at her home studio in Hampton Bays.

“We are a well-oiled machine over here now,” she said. “I have some assistants that come in and prep the work for me, but I do all the cutting myself. Some will curl petals, too. Sometimes you’re curling the same curl for 12 hours at a time, because there are commissions and events, and the production time is often nonexistent. People tend to think I have a paper flower garden at home, that I just randomly gallivant in and pick. But it’s solely me assembling everything, giving it the last look through, and making sure it’s perfect before it goes out to clients.”

Certain commissions can require the kind of uniformity and precision that gets down to fractions of a centimeter, while other jobs allow Gerber to play, which she said is “always such a treat.”

The White House commission was particularly memorable, Gerber said, calling it a “surreal” experience.

She was not allowed to let her assistants or anyone else know during the five-week production period who the client was, and Gerber said she was warned ahead of time that, if Mrs. Obama didn’t like what she saw during the walk-through after they were done, the flowers might “disappear” by the next morning.

It was a hold-your-breath moment when the work was ready to be unveiled. Gerber had outfitted the entire East Room of the White House with paper flower creations, in collaboration with designer David Beahm, who was in charge of the holiday decor.

They received good news the next morning: The first lady loved what she had done, and Gerber was able to meet her and said she had a “lovely” conversation with her at the White House about her work.

The obvious advantage that paper flowers have over the real thing is their permanence, and that’s part of what Gerber loves about what she does, and why she was drawn to them herself in the first place.

“I couldn’t fathom spending so much money on something that was going to die after a few days,” she said of her own wedding. “I wanted to leave my guests with a piece of art and emotion that evokes a memory.”

She finds that her clients appreciate that sentiment as well.

“The pieces seem to find their way onto mantles and Christmas trees, displayed around the home,” she said. “It’s really exciting to see the connection with it.”

The entire endeavor has been extremely gratifying, Gerber added.

“I’ve been doing this ever since my 2011 wedding, and knock on wood, there seems to be such an incredible array of people who value commissioning private art,” she said. “So I’ve been really, really lucky.”

And the icing — or, rather, the perfectly hand-crafted paper flower — on the cake for Gerber has been the way the work fits into her life.

“The fact that I can still do it while I’m at home and be there for all four of my kids in the moment,” she said. “It’s definitely a win-win for all of us.”

For more of Tana Leigh Gerber and Bohemian Bloom, visit bohemianbloom.com.