Fresh flowers are happy-makers, and I almost always have some on our kitchen table. But the second my flowers start to show where they’re headed (death), I toss them into the compost pile. Wilting blossoms bring me down.

Flowers given to you by someone else aren’t just colorful pick-me-ups, they’re a symbol of care and a gesture of love. Especially with such a sentimental bouquet, like that one you got for Valentine’s Day, you may want to extend your enjoyment of your flowers further than their typical lifespan.

Here are some ways to savor your flowers past their freshest days:

Make Some Rose Water

Rose water is fragrant and beautiful. It can be used as a skin toner, facial spray, natural perfume, or as an addition to your bathwater. (Don’t ingest rose water unless you know for sure it’s made from pesticide-free roses.) Making rose water isn’t much harder than brewing tea. Here’s how to make your own .

Make Personalized Potpourri

Making potpourri involves little more than drying your special flowers in the oven or microwave . You can add things like citrus, dried ginger, cinnamon sticks, vanilla beans, or other herbs to make the scent more complex and even spritz with an essential oil solution to take it up another notch. You can make potpourri out of any flowers, so no matter what kind of bouquet you have, potpourri is a great way to memorialize it. You can pour the potpourri in a decorative bowl and keep it near you on your desk or nightstand or put it in sachets to add a gentle scent to your dresser drawers or linen closet.

Add Them to Your Bath

To make the most of your bouquet without actually making something else with the flowers, gather fallen petals and blooms and toss them in your bath for a gorgeous and decadent treat. For easy clean-up, scoop out the flowers with a strainer before you drain the water.

Additionally, if you dry your flowers , you can mix them with some bath salts for a delicately floral pampering experience you can scoop into the tub. Plus, it’s so pretty to look at between soaks.

Press Them

Pressing some flowers or sprigs from your bouquet allows you to keep a piece of your bouquet indefinitely. You can press them the old fashioned way between the pages of a book, or use a flower press, microwave flower press, or even an iron. Once they’re pressed, you can use your preserved flowers as bookmarks , wall art , and more .