Beauty through Everlasting Flowers - Drying Ferns and Flowers for Winter Decorations

Book excerpt: Table of Contents Introduction White Sand Drying Sand Preparation Layering of the Flowers Drying of Ferns How to make a Fern Window Decoration Traditional German Flower Smoking Method Fern Outline Airbrushing Splatter Spray Card Skeletonized leaves for Winter Decoration Conclusion Author Bio Publisher Introduction All of these beautiful flowers can be dried, so that one can appreciate the beauty, even after they have been plucked from their stalks. So can their seedpods and foliage. Drying plants, ferns, herbs, and flowers for use in the future or just for decoration in the house, when they are not in season, has been en vogue for centuries, all over the world, wherever there was a thinking man existing who wanted to take advantage of something, which could be utilized in the future when that particular plant was not in season. And so in order to keep the beauty of flowers, along came the idea of drying these plants and to a large number of experimentations, over a large number of years, using many different mediums. More and more people began to learn that yes, it was easy for you to dry plans, as well as flowers in a natural manner, and have them ready within a couple of days or weeks to be preserved permanently, in a dried state. There are plenty of methods, with which you can dry plants and flowers, and this book is going to tell you all about easily done traditional methods, which were followed in the 19th century, by ladies who did not want to spend lots of money in buying expensive equipment or getting over laden with chemicals in order to do some natural enjoyable activities like drying ferns and flowers. And after that, these are used in winter decorations, in their houses, where they were placed in glass containers and jars, like had been done in millions of houses, down the centuries by other house proud housewives. Some of these plants were called everlastings or immortelles. Helichrysums were given the name of everlastings, because even after drying, they kept their golden pretty color. The immortelles belong to the daisy Asteraceae family. A little bit of experimentation is going to be necessary, depending on where you live, and the amount of flowers and the varieties you get there. Everlastings are normally cut, when they are still in Bud form or before they have reached their full maturity stage. They are then placed upside down, in any area, where you do not have direct or bright sunlight, so that they can dry naturally.