My daughter will be a bridesmaid at a friend's wedding later this year. The bride wants us to save rose petals for the guests to throw instead of confetti. How can I dry them without losing their color?
By Linda Henderson from Aberdeen, Scotland
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You could buy silks (cheap dollar stores, etc) and take apart the roses. I have done this and it is nice. OR you could gather roses, I take and hang them upside down, then pluck the petals off when dry. Also have taken a cooling rack from baking and laid on a tray, lay the petals on these to air dry. AWAY from sun and moisture. A dark basement room? You want air to move around it to keep them from becoming moldy.
I also took the arrangements from m-i-l funeral and dried all bouquets as they disintegrated. I tossed them into the oven on slighting ON ONLY. I took all the flowers (Christmas funeral) and put into apothecary jars with tops and all my children got some of their grandma's flowers. Grandma did not like flowers so we used lots of Christmas greens, red and white carnations, other Christmas colors. So they are 'manly keep sakes"!
I dry roses all the time. If you want the heads - hang upside down don't let them open all the way, if you only want the petals - pull them lay out on sheets hung from rafters or on flat baskets. They need air flow around them.
Depending on what colour the roses are will determine if you want to dry them or not .
You need a very very dry area with NO LIGHT
white roses generally dry to a cream - NO LIGHT
Yellow roses dry beautiful
Pinks & rose coloured generally dry well
Some reds will dry so dark they look black - not great effect for a wedding
Rosa rugosa has great smell and dries nice .. a dark rose red .
You will need an alternative if the weather is wet, muggy etc. Ria
Wow, that's going to be expensive. You can purchase Silica Gel at you local craft store and follow the directions. The good news is it is reuseable.
You can also throw birdseed and have nothing to clean up. Or, you can do bubbles that cost next to nothing. N-JOY
Does the bride know that if the rose petals get damp they will leave marks all over her dress? Better pray for really nice weather, or use bird seed, as suggested already.
You can buy silk rose petals in a bag. I have used them for crafting, and they work well. I buy them at the dollar tree here, so you can get them inexpensively. Even if you buy them at the craft store, which would cost more, it would still be less expensive than the real ones.
Your daughter's friend certainly has expensive taste ;-) I agree with dollar store silk rose petals and bird seed and bubbles are lots of fun and look so cool in photographs of the bride and groom!
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