How to Preserve your Roses

Hello loves, happy Thursday. I've been meaning to share this for a while now but I had no idea when I first started this that it really wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Yes I have seen many videos and tutorials but actually doing it is a whole other thing.

Thursday's Treat...Preserving your Roses!

Tools:

-your favorite flowers

-silica gel

-box or case big enough to seal covered flowers in

-craft wire

-Krylon UV Resistant clear spray Glossy

-gloves

-newspaper

-vase or display dish

I got these beautiful Roses over a month ago. The photo really doesn't do justice to the vibrant red tones in the flower, they were simply breathtaking. I decided immediately that I wanted to preserve them. I kept them in my office for a week changed the water twice. Then took them home to begin the saving process.

I bought 2 bags of Silica Gel at Michael's craft store for about $6.00 each along with a large plastic box to keep the flowers in as they dried. The plastic case was on sale for about $9.00. You need something deep and large enough to have space between the flowers and full coverage of the Silica beads. I cut the stems off and left about 1/2 an inch of stem on the flower (not good enough, and inch or 1 1/2 would be best I will explain later), I saved the stems and removed the leaves.

I set a layer of Silica Gel on the bottom of plastic case and began to arrange the flowers to be covered. I made sure they were healthy and in full bloom so the beads can go into the petals and remove the moisture. The little gel beads will be blue when you begin and turn pick when you are finished. I continued to gentle cover the roses completely until I was satisfied the moisture would be removed. Thinking back now I would have bought a smaller case just deeper and 3 bags instead of 2.

The drying out process can be done in 2 weeks but I went for 3 just to be safe. While they dried I went back to Michael's and bought the preserving spray. I chose Krylon brand because I have used it in the past and quality was great. I chose Glossy finish because I wanted a shimmer effect. As you can see once I removed them from the gel bath they still look bright, full and intact. The reality is they are very delicate and you have to use a soft touch not to damage the effect you are going for. I almost forgot to mention that as they dried I also had the stems drying in the kitchen window.

So here you will see how shiny and bright they still look, they are holding up well during the spray process which was...use gloves because the spray is sticky and lay down some newspapers because you don't want to mess up your table or any other work space. I live in an apartment so going out to my back yard is not an option and OPEN up all your windows the spray is a bit much. I sprayed 2 coats I also sprayed any petals that fell off in the process and laid them out close to a window for 2 days only because I got busy with something else. A day should work fine. Make sure you saturate every inch or it will not keep well.

After 2 days I went back to add my stems with craft wire and found that I hadn't left enough space to work comfortably attaching stem to flower and I was actually making some of my petals fall off so I gave up on that and decided to display them in another way.

This is my IKEA storage bench in my bedroom, it has a few goodies displayed on it as you can see. All things I love candles, pictures, etc...I used a vase I rec'd my birthday flowers in and laid the flowers in gently to the top. I love the colors and how it fits in well with the other surrounding goodies.

Was it fun? Sure. Am I happy with end result? Absolutely. Would I do it again? No, not unless the Roses were out of this world! Why? Well because the flowers retain some of those tiny gel beads inside and they are a bit messy. Then you see those 2 bags of Silica gel I used? Well they are reusable but in order to do so you have to bring them back to original state which is placing then in oven or microwave until the beads turn blue again and that is pain in the A**. So because I am all about stress free this is not something I would do too often.

Hope you enjoy this treat, I would love to hear and see pics on your preserving journey.

Always stress free xo

Mari