Preserving Grandma’s Flowers: The Unveiling

I’m really super scared to take these flowers out of the silica gel! I keep thinking they might be ruined, or worse, I’ll ruin them by taking them out too soon!

The instructions said to keep them in for two weeks. It’s been well beyond that. So, please hold my hand while I take a peek at Grandma’s flowers.

Here’s the box:

I’m taking off the lid:

Okay, here goes nothing!

Well the mums didn’t make it and had to be sifted out…

This one came out pretty well, but this next one…

The carnations did SO MUCH better though! And since those were Grandma’s favorites (one of her sons said he thought maybe they were??) I’m glad those ones did the best!

Overall, the flowers are SO BEAUTIFUL!!

And, maybe I can do something yet with the mums and things that fell apart?

Pros: The color is absolutely perfect and vibrant! They look like they just came out of the vase! The surviving flowers look so perfect!

Cons: The method of digging them back out again was tricky because the roses were extremely delicate. Like brittle and papery. Like more delicate than delicate. Also, cost of materials will be more than the method of just hanging flowers upside down in a dark closet.

I think if I were to do it again, I’d use a shallow container and just make one layer so I wouldn’t accidentally dig into the next layer when I was taking them out. I’d also only do sturdy flowers like carnations or maybe an arrangement mostly kept in tact? Overall, I’m glad I did it! But I’m also glad I took the other half of the flowers and dried them a different way. Some I laid flat, others I hung upside down in a dark closet. Between these three methods, I think I’ll have enough to work with because…

My next venture is to make keepsakes with them. Now, wouldn’t it suck if the flowers came out awesome but I ruined the keepsake? ACK!

See my first post about Preserving Grandma’s Flowers and Part 2 when I placed the flowers in the silica.

~Jamie