I am Katie, owner and artist of Preserved by Katie. I am a nature artist, specialising in floral preservation. I work mainly preserving nature in latex, it is latex which gives my work its unique amber colour.

I live in Derby with my husband and our kitten. I work from my makeshift home studio (our tiny spare room). I moved to Derby 7 years ago to study Creative Expressive Therapies at the University of Derby. I loved my time at university and it was during my final year that I started creating my latex disks of preserved nature, you will find some images of my wall of 1100+ disks in my gallery. I plan to one day go back and study my Masters in Art Therapy and use that to work with looked after children. Both I and my husband have a huge heart for children in care and are hoping to foster in the near future. Having grown up in the sunny seaside town of Frinton-on-Sea I have always had a love of nature, spending much of my teenage years admiring the ocean and investigating seashells.

During my first two years at university, I worked primarily with textiles and it wasn’t until the final year that a fascination with nature gripped me. I became amazed at how resilient but fragile plants were, how ever-changing they are, and how there is so much beauty in each stage of a plant’s life cycle. I was captivated that I could preserve that beauty forever.

I spent the 3 years after I graduated working jobs that I didn’t enjoy and I spent my days dreaming of creating. After university, I started to preserve my friends’ wedding flowers and I preserved my own in 2018. Since leaving my office job in 2019, I have had the privilege of preserving many wedding flowers and the honour of working with funeral flowers as well. This first year of business has given me time to experiment with new ideas, scale my business, and increase my product range. A lot of my new products were born out of customer ideas and feedback. I am always open to trying new things so please do get in touch if you can’t find what you are looking for.