Best dried flowers How to dry at home in 2022

Book Press Method to dry flowers

Dried flowers , How to dry at home ? This is the ultimate guide to drying flowers .This is something your parents probably did, or maybe you did this with a parent as a child. So you’ll want to start with just a regular book, and I’m going to place a piece of parchment paper inside and just start placing my flowers a little bit spaced out. I like to separate the blooms instead of doing the whole stem, but if you have a bigger book feel free to put the whole stem in there.

I find that leaves don’t work really well for flower pressing this way. It’s really just your personal preference, but as you can see I brought a little bit of nature indoors when I did this. I had a little fly in one of these blossoms in the crepe myrtle. But I’m just going to place a few more here and then get it all situated before I fold my paper in half and set it in there to dry for a few weeks.

And we’ll take a look in a minute at what that looks like. Feel free to rearrange some of the blossoms because you want to think about what they’re going to look like when they’re pressed flat.

So I’m going to just make sure they’re all situated where I want them before I close my book. And then I’ll take some heavy object– you can use a brick or some other kind of heavy paperweight– and set it on top. And we’ll take a look in a minute at what it looks like two weeks later. And we have beautifully pressed flowers. The color looks really good on these, and they are paper-thin. I really love the way these came out. You can use these for resin crafts.

After reading this article you will dried flowers and you will know how to dried at home

Silica Gel (conventional) to dry flowers

I decided to also use this silica gel to test on this bouquet, and it’s like a sand that you’ll pour into a container like this one that’s plastic or metal. You don’t want to reuse the plastic container because some of the pesticides from flowers can leak into the silica gel. Just make sure you have a tight-fitting lid for this particular method. Again, I’m going to trim my bouquet down so I’m just leaving the flowers, and I’m trimming right by the calyx that’s at the bottom there. And I’m going to use a variety of flowers here to show you how different flowers behave with silica gel.

It’s a great method for preserving color and texture, but you’ll see some flowers are better than others for using this method and really all of the other drying methods too. So I’m going to start by pouring a layer of this silica gel into my plastic container. You will want to probably wear gloves just to protect your hands and maybe even a mask because the gel is like a sand that’s very fine, and it can kind of get into the air. You just don’t want to be breathing that in.

It’s like when you pour flour or sugar into a container and some of that mist gets up in the air. You will notice that the instructions are inside the bag. A lot of people buy this and then they complain that there are no directions, so they’re actually inside the bag.

You’ll want to keep those handy because they do have some good tips on how to dry different types of flowers. So I have my layer of silica gel about an inch and a half thick, and I’m going to place my flowers inside. Usually, you’d want a little more room than what I’m showing here, but just for the purposes of this demonstration, I’m going to put a few different flowers in here. And then I’m going to top the petals off with a little bit more silica gel.

You don’t need to completely cover it. You just want to make sure that there’s enough gel to wick the moisture out of the flowers. Once you have your flowers where you want them, all you have to do is put a lid on it and then set your flowers again in a cool, dry place. I did another batch here in one of those take-home containers from a restaurant, and again it’s always best to use similar flowers together. I did stick a few other varieties in here and plugged up any holes with some duct tape.

I always feel like it’s Christmas opening up these containers to see how your flowers look. And I’m gonna take a peek at these. You can see the color on the back looks really good. There was some darkening of some of the shades. I think this mum needs a little bit more time, but look at the crystals…the silica gel.

You can tell that the blue crystals have turned pink, and that’s how you know that the silica gel is absorbing the moisture, when those blue crystals turn that pink shade. I’m going to put this mum back in for a little bit longer, but let’s check on our little cushion pom mums.

And i think these look pretty much done. I also stuck in a few of these little aster daisies. They are so dainty, and look at how the color looks great even though they’re shriveled. These button poms look really good. I love the color on these, and the texture is really nice. It’s not really brittle. You can use a little brush to brush off any of the extra silica gel, by the way.

Silica Gel (microwave)

silica gel method in the microwave is much better, and even better than that is just regular silica gel waiting a few days for your flowers to dry. So I’m dying to know which method was your favorite. I definitely am partial to the silica gel method. I think it does the best job of preserving the flower’s color and texture, but I want to know what you think.