cut and dried

NINA BOOTH didn’t set out to create a wildly successful floral studio. What began as a COVID-driven hobby has grown, almost by accident, into a thriving business servicing high-end retailers and customers across the country.

“I’ve always made wreaths and arrangements for family and friends. During the early part of the pandemic, I would go foraging for flowers with my dog and make jewelry or bouquets from them,” says Booth, whose business, RIGHT SIDE HAND, operates out of a quaint workshop in Winters where color-coordinated bundles of dried flowers are stacked gingerly on a wall of shelves.

A friend saw what Booth was making and asked, “What are you going to do with all of it?” Booth wasn’t entirely sure. After a few months of hawking bouquets at pop-up events and posting her creations to Instagram, Booth was contacted by New York-based ABC Carpet & Home about producing a holiday collection for them.

Before long, she was selling her exquisite dried flower terrariums and arrangements to national retailers like The Sill, Anthropologie and Terrain.

Since then, Booth’s work has appeared in Vogue magazine and The Wall Street Journal, and her terrariums have been gifted to celebrities including Rachel Brosnahan

(“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) and Jonathan Van Ness (“Queer Eye”).

Booth prefers to work with dried flowers over fresh. “I love the nature of them and the beauty that can still come after they’ve been picked and dried. They take on this whole different look,” she explains, adding that she enjoys the patient pace of work that dried arrangements afford. “I feel rushed working with fresh flowers.”

Booth, an artist who left a job with West Elm to run Right Side Hand, believes that since the pandemic, “people want more nature in their home.” Dried flowers, she says, “are an investment. I love that you don’t have to replace them. They can be more of a permanent part of your décor.”

To order, visit rightsidehand.online.