Drying flowers

[Loim]

Anyone have any good tips, or know of any good tutorials for drying flowers for basing? There is a wealth of tiny flowers around here, but so far I have had limited success. Thanks in advance.

[Sarah Devier]

Put the flowers you want to dry in a airtight container with a layer of silica gel underneath, you can reuse the silica gel by drying it back out in the oven at around 250F on a baking sheet.

[Loth]

I've also heard that you can spray the flowers with a glycerin spray. The glycerin will replace the water in the flowers and keep the original flower coloring.

 

Note: I haven't tested this myself to know how well it works but the pics on it were impressive .

 

Loth

[Corporea]

when I dry herbs or flowers for arrangements, I dry them upside down hanging in a dark, dry place. That will keep them mold-free and in a more natural position. But they're still fragile. Sealer, maybe? The basil flower I used were sealed.

[purple llama]

I have had good luck with the silica gel, you can buy flower drying kits that are just a big ol' bag of silica gel that you bury the flowers in. I have a neat microwave flower dryer too where you sandwich the flower between two thick sheets of felt which are in turn sandwiched by unglazed clay. Works well to keep the colours, but leaves them flat. I tried the upside down in a dark dry place thing on some bright blue cornflowers and most of them turned white. Don't know how to fix that.

 

One thing, dry them while they're as close to newly opened as possible (or even just before, sometimes). The longer they've been open, the more likely they are to just complete their natural process and fall apart when you dry them.