Dried flowers are a popular home décor item and look stunning arranged in vases or combined with other objects such as candles or fresh blooms. However, buying enough to decorate your place can get pricey. Making your own at home is seriously easy (although the success rate may not always be 100%), so why not give it a go? Your home will soon be brimming with delicate dried blooms!
Buy (Or Receive) A Fresh Bouquet
To make this really low-cost, you ideally want someone to gift you a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. If this seems unlikely, buy a bunch from a shop, but check that the flowers are in good condition with no signs of browning or withering. Flower types that work well include roses, agapanthus, carnations, and alliums (ornamental flowering onions). Anything that’s too ‘fleshy’—iris, for example—risks wilting and browning rather than drying.
Feed And Water The Flowers
You want the flowers to fully bloom, so put them in a vase with water and flower food as you normally would. The benefit of this is if for any reason the flowers fail to dry, you still get to enjoy them at this stage.
Remove The Water
After two to three days, remove the water from the vase. Lay the flowers out in a sunny patch near a window, until the bottom of the stems have dried. Then, place the blooms in a glass (or see-through) vase, and leave in a sunny spot for at least a week. Gradually, the moisture will leave the flowers, and you should be left with intricate dried blooms. Sometimes the flowers are too moist, and in this case will need to be thrown away as they begin rotting after a few days!
This method of drying flowers is super easy, so if you can get some flowers for free or low-cost, it’s definitely worth a try.