Saving flowers

orangesmartie

Hi, wonder if you guys can help.

I got some beautiful flowers for my birthday and I would really like to save a couple somehow, for memory reasons. I don't really want to press them because then they lose their shape (and i love the shape of roses). Is there another way I can save them please?

Apologies if there is another thread that can help, i did search but couldn't find anything.

Thanks

Callie22

You can hang them upside down somewhere warm and dark and they'll dry, but you need to it when they're fairly fresh otherwise the petals will be too loose and they'll fall off. They will be fragile when they're dried but as long as you're careful you can keep them.

orangesmartie

Thanks Callie

jackyann

Many years (40+) ago, I did something that was well known at the time, but I've not heard of for ages:
you stand the flowers in a container in a box, and carefully pour in, very dry, fine, silver sand, until they are completely covered. I can't remember how long I left them - some weeks I think - and they came out beautifully dried.
They lasted about 10 years I think.
I did see some substance in a craft shop once that sounded as if it did the same job, but I haven't seen or heard of this for ages. Try google......

babyshoes

I've done the hanging roses upside down thing, they dry quite nicely and you can keep them for a long while, but they don't last forever, obviously.

Pink.

I dry roses by hanging them upside down from one of the shelves in the airing cupboard. It takes around two weeks and works better on dark coloured roses as pale ones can lose their colour a little.

This thread has more advice:

flowers-help!!!!

I'll add your thread to that one later to keep the replies together.

Pink

pumpkinclouds1

You can also microwave flowers to dry them out.
XxX

building_with_lego

Similar to the silver sand tip up there ^^ I'm sure I read that you can pack them carefully into a box surrounded by those little packs of silica gel you get in shoeboxes and they'll dry out nicely.

Are you hoping to dry the whole stem as well or just the flower head?

meritaten

I have read that you can preserve flowers in glycerine, but not tried it. apparently you just stand them in the glycerine and they draw it up like water and leaves the flowers more natural looking. takes a couple of weeks I believe.

orangesmartie

oooh thanks for the suggestions and the link Pink. I really just want the flower heads if I'm honest, but they are all pale colours, so they may not be very good when dried

they mean a lot, not the flowers themselves so i'd like to have a memento of some kind from them

breadlinebetty

I've kept lots of flowers that were special to me, some are about 20 years old now.

All I do is let the flowers dry naturally in the vase - I empty the water, of course - and then let the bouquet stand upright in the vase until they're dried out.

I then carefully take the flower heads (some will remain intact while others fall apart into separate petals) and I then put them in a bowl and keep them as pot pourri. Every so often I sprinkle them with rose essence too.

After time some of the flowers and petals will start to disintegrate if you disturb them by swooshing them aound after adding essence, but some will remain whole. I still have some deep red little roses that have stayed intact, but even if they don't, it's still nice to keep them as pot pourri:)