Air Dried Roses

Hi!

Roses are such lovely flowers. I wish I could preserve them forever. Alas! Like all other natural things they too eventually wither away. How then to make them last longer than the usual shelf life?

I did my research on the internet and came across flower drying, a technique wherein the moisture from flowers is sucked out using some methods and then these dried out beauties  are stored or used as decorative pieces. So this post is going to be about one such method of drying- Air Drying. 

I received a lovely bouquet of yellow roses as a gift from my sister on my birthday. They stayed fresh for around a week, after which they gradually started drooping. The color looked bright but the petals  began falling apart. I really wanted to preserve those roses and not just by pressing them between books.

I always liked pressing flowers between the pages of a heavy book, but that wouldn't ever retain their shape. Drying on the other hand, keeps the shape as well as the color intact. (Slight darkening in the shade is natural). There are a number of ways to go about the drying- Air drying, desiccate drying, using wax, wax paper, etc. 

I decided to go in for the easy and cost-effective method, i.e. Air drying, which is basically hanging flower bunches upside down, so that it leaves all moisture.

Let's get started!

Supplies:

• A bunch of flowers(I used roses), a week old
• Pair of scissors
• Thread or String
• Clothes hanger or rod

What to do:

1. Firstly cut open the bouquet and remove all unwanted greens, that are turning black. Pick out the stalks and place them on a newspaper or surface.

    2.   Then cut the stalks to a shorter length and remove leaves.

 

   3.    Next cut the string into small segments of about 15-20 cm and tie these to the ends of the stalks  

   4.    Now place the tied stalks on a clothes hanger, so that the roses are hanging upside down, and               put it up in a dark corner for the flowers to dry out.

The flowers should be done in about two weeks time. They will turn a shade darker but the shape stays almost the same. I have mine hanging in my room and I think they look so pretty just hanging like that. 

Note: The flowers can also be hung up on a curtain rod instead of the clothes hanger. Once dried, these flowers can be used as decorative items or gifts.