How To: Dry Flowers & Herbs

Sunday, May 28, 2017

This is a method that generally works for drying herbs and flowers, although the herbs come out better ;)
Herbs can be stored whole in a dark air tight container. Flowers should be hit with a dried flower preserving spray and placed somewhere, right side up.

In the ~6 hours we had in the apartment between the wedding & our flight to Hawaii, I managed to snip a couple buds off of my bouquet and press them between some paper and some books. I also decided to hang the rest of the bouquet upside down in the closet for 6 months to dry it out (it probably only needed 2 months, but I forget). In hindsight, if I had more time, I probably should've disassembled the bouquet and pressed all of the flowers & leaves. Pressing just comes out better, although it can be a little old-fashioned to have a bunch of pressed flowers in frames.

More old-fashioned than dried flowers? I don't know.
Given more time, I would have disassembled the bouquet, placed all the leafy bits between sheets of newspaper to dry them flatter, and used silica gel to maintain the coloring of the flowers. The cabbages probably still would've come out brown, lol.





(5 months drying)


(two weeks drying)


(fresh)