For all you brides or hopeless romantics, begin saving rose petals from your bridal bouquet and from any other bouquets your beloved gives you through the years. When your dear daughters marry, their flower girls can toss those rose petals passing on a legacy of love.
To dry, break or cut the rose bud or flower from the stem and lay on a paper plate in a single layer. Turn the flowers over several times over a few weeks so all surfaces are exposed to the air. Once completely dry place in a zip lock bag (failure to dry completely will result in moldy flowers). Store carefully so as not to crush.
By Diana from Prospect, KY
I have an oven that uses a pilot light so it is warm in the oven all the time. To dry my rose petals I spread them on cookie sheets and leave them in the oven for about 24 hours. The petals will come out darker than the original rose. For instance, Mister Lincoln red roses dry to a very dark burgundy and Julia Child yellow roses dry to a very intense, bright yellow. I have heard that you can set your oven for 100 degrees and get the same result, but never tried it.
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
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
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
Can someone tell me the best way to dry individual rose petals that have fallen from the flower, to make potpourri? I would like to preserve the color if possible. And after the petals are dry, what are some good scents to add to the mixture?
When your bouquets are nearly done for, use a rubber band to tie the stems together. Be careful, especially if they're roses - the thorns can hurt. Then hang them upside down to air dry - using a loop of the rubber band.
I've written about this before, but I simply must emphasize how wonderful it is to be able to have free potpourri that recycles, lasts a long time, looks good, and can be added to for free.
Barely able to afford the most needed freshener new cones solids from the dollar store , I watch them for about a week until they look nearly dried up, then remove the cone and pull off the residual freshener solid off it's plactic stem inside, which comes out sort of funky-shaped, but
dark in color. (I prefer the raspberry, citrus, cherry, or spices.)
I do two things with them after I let them dry . First I then place them in a freezer baggie and break them into pieces with a hammer.
For every single flower petal I have found, sorted or mixed, air-dried, saved in a med. Sized clear, disposable, plastic bakery container. I secondly add the pieces I broke. No mixing required, but when I find dried pods, juniper berries, tiny dried okras, dried avocado seeds. I add them to the mix creating a delightful, free, workable potpourri.
The fun comes when I find various containers for them ranging from extra large sea shells to unused covered candy dishes with the lids removed on dry days.
Granted, I must buy the dollar coned freshener for my pets' odors which are stronger than normal cooking odors, and are only in two rooms, but the fact that I can stretch the use of them, rather than to toss the dried up parts, eventually begins to smell very good with more pieces of dried freshener.
I try to keep colors matching fragrances, such as lighter oranges with citrus, or dark reds and greens with the berry fragrances.
Once in a while i will find curbside, on a box or bin, where someone tossed or set out a "spent" whole clear sack of potpourri, and that gives me a bigger and usually more colorful base with which to add my own simple mixture.
If I have an extra dollar or so at holiday sale times, I can often find bags of potpourri on sale for 75% off, nearly free to replenish whatever gets dusty after a year, still using some of the bottom parts/ pieces, discarding the dusty parts.
Note: I didn't care for perfumes or heavy fragrances, so I try to keep it as fresh smelling as possible. At one time I was adding citrus fruit peelings to a holiday potpourri only to find that it attracts flying insects, so I stopped with that idea, and by trial and error, I am satisfied with this simple program/craft. God bless you. : )
ThriftyFun is one of the longest running frugal living communities on the Internet. These are archives of older discussions.
