A woman who set up a florist aged just 22 has turned it into a business turning over £500,000 a year - and her flowers have even appeared on EastEnders.
Florist Anna Jenkins, now 34, set up Silky Bouquets in 2011 straight out of university, where she had studied textiles.
As the name suggests, Silky Bouquets create hand-made flower tributes from silk.
The firm makes them for events like weddings and baby showers, but Anna says funerals are where most of her designs are featured.
Customers ask her to make custom designs to remember their loved ones by.
These include Elvis Presley tributes, as well as ones inspired by the character Del Boy from British sitcom Only Fools and Horses.
Her other funeral creations include Buzz Lightyear, Maltesers boxes, Peter Rabbit and Chanel lipstick designs.
But her most-viewed designs were the ones featured in hit soap EastEnders.
Anna made the floral tributes that appeared on the show when much-loved character Tina Carter died .
The designs, such as silk flowers spelling out the word 'Auntie', were placed in the back of a multi-coloured hearse when Tina's coffin was taken to her funeral.
Another of her more memorable requests was a 15-foot long name placard, which she said was "obscene", took her two-and-a-half days to make and caused her fingers to bleed for weeks.
Anna said much of her business comes from people seeing her designs on social media channels like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, then getting in contact.
She added: "Most customers find us on socials, then call in to ask us to create something bespoke for them. People see all the personalised tributes we’ve made for others and get inspiration as to what they might want created.”
“Or younger people see our ‘build a bouquet with me’ videos on TikTok and then come to visit our physical store.”
But Anna told small business lender iwoca that using social media for her business can be a curse as well as a blessing.
She added: "Everyone and anyone can interact with your pages so it’s much easier to get into scrapes with customers who - whatever the level of service - want to damage your business’s reputation.
"You find a lot more customers like this online as it’s so easy for them to message instantly or leave lasting comments which are often unfair or untrue, that everyone can see."
She said one example was when she made a bespoke car out of flowers, complete with number plate, for a funeral.
But the customer who ordered the floral tribute said it never arrived - despite it appearing in photos of the event on social media.
