How to Preserve All Natural Fresh Flowers

Various techniques exist on preserving fresh, all natural flowers, making it possible for you to hold onto some of your favorite blossoms. Whether you’re saving flowers from your personal garden or you want to keep a bouquet or arrangement piece as a sentimental memento, preserving your fresh all natural flowers isn’t a difficult endeavor. Preserving fresh, all natural flowers provides you with ornamental and botanical craft embellishments for a wide range of different projects.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You’ll Need:

• Fresh whole flowers
• Florist’s wire
• Wire coat hanger
• Hairspray

1. Gather some fresh, whole flowers. Select about a dozen at a time. Choose flowers fresh from a bouquet or cut them from your garden.

2. Wrap the center of the bundle’s stems with florist’s wire. Double wrap it with the wire to further secure it and leave about 12 inches of wire protruding from the stems after they’ve been wrapped.

3. Loop the excess wire over the bottom, straight-edge of the wire coat hanger. Loop the wire around the center of the straight-edge and then twist it around the stems a final time. This makes the bundle of flowers hang upside-down from the coat hanger.

4. Hang the coat hanger on your clothesline or from a hook in a location where the flowers can air-dry.

5. Hold the can of hairspray, or craft glossing spray, about 5 inches from the surface of the flowers’ blossoms. Press firmly and release a mist of the spray over the entire surface of the flowers. Let the flowers hang for two weeks, spraying them every three days.

Tips & Warnings

• Store the preserved, dried flowers loosely in plastic zipper bags in a dry place. They can also be arranged and displayed in a vase for an indefinite length of time.

• Use the dried, preserved flowers in a wide range of crafts such as scrapbooking projects or in homemade floral wreaths. You can also add the blossoms of roses, lavender and other flowers to homemade soaps and candles.