Dried Flowers

A week or so ago I fell down into a little rabbit hole.

Based on the title of this post and this first picture, you might assume I went down a rabbit hole of dried flowers. That is partially true. Dried flowers is where I ended up, but the first rabbit hole I fell into was for junk journals.

And I was fascinated by what I saw. I watched all kinds of YouTube videos about how to make junk journals and decided that I should make one or two or who knows how many!?

What are these junk journals? I think of them almost like scrapbooking for messy people like me who tried scrapbooking back in the early 2000s—didn’t everyone?—but never thought I was any good at it. But I still managed to end up with all kinds of papers, punches, stamps, and other supplies to create lovely scrapbooks. My most memorable (perhaps only) project was a scrapbook I made for my mom which gathered up her childhood pictures and memories in one place. I’m glad I did it because it’s nice now that she has passed on to get it out every once in a while to look through it and remember her in ways other than how she was at the end of her life.

But then, as sometimes happens, my interest in scrapbooking tapered off. Over time, I rounded and stored most of the supplies, and promptly forgot what I had.

Then boom! I tumbled down that rabbit hole of junk journals. Boom! The last week or so I’ve been finding all my old scrapbooking supplies, getting them out, and setting up a work area to make a junk journal. I was shocked at how much material I had collected in that little bit of time when I was scrapbooking (weren’t we all?) and how much I had forgotten I had. Paper, punches, stamps, stickers, even an embossing tool!

Wow. I’m all set now because of course I also went to the hobby stores to get a few new items to use in my junk journals. And I won’t lie and I say I didn’t order anything from Etsy. Let’s just say Etsy now thinks I am obsessed with paper ephemera, which is used in making junk journals.

Anyway, there I was, all set to start making a junk journal when I hit play on yet another YouTube video about using dried flowers in your junk journals.

And I tumbled right in. The dried violas above were actually just a few flowers I had decided to dry in a flower press a few weeks ago before I went down the rabbit hole of junk journals and then made a sharp turn and slid down into dried flowers. The press isn’t very big so I didn’t dry that many flowers.

But now I need a lot of dried flowers!

I decided that my big dictionary, which is nearly six inches thick, would be a better press for flowers because I could do a lot at one time. So I ran out yesterday and cut nearly every perfect viola still blooming and arranged them on a piece of paper.

Then I carefully placed another sheet of paper and that great big dictionary on top of them.

Now you are probably thinking. That’s nice. End of post. We’ll see how those look in a few weeks. What will Carol make with them, etc.?

Well, no, let’s go a little deeper down this rabbit hole. I clicked on one more YouTube video about drying flowers. This one was about using a microwave to dry flowers using paper and a heavy ceramic tile. I was just about to head out to the garage to find an old ceramic tile, but then I watched a video of someone using an actual flower press made for use in a microwave.

And then I remembered that I own a flower press made for use in a microwave, and I’ve never even tried it!

I bought it from Lee Valley probably decades ago. I just looked it up and they say it is no longer available. Sorry about that if you were going to rush over to their website to order one for yourself.

Anyway, this post is getting quite long, for me!

I ran out and picked a few more violas and dried them with this press and thought they turned out pretty nice.

I stuck them between two pieces of paper and put them in my dictionary for extra drying.

Then I ran out and picked some daisies and a coneflower.

After drying them in the microwave for 90 seconds, they came out looking like this:

I think maybe a few seconds less on these because the tips of the coneflower look a little brown.

Anyway, you know what this means?

This means I’m going to take out all those violas smashed under the dictionary and dry them in the microwave.

Plus, I’m going to head out to the garden in a bit—if it doesn’t rain—to gather up more flowers and leaves to try drying in the microwave.

Stay tuned to see what I end up making with these! Yes, I watched another video of a most excellent idea for how to preserve these dried flowers to make items to use with paper crafts, and junk journals. Oh yes, I really should make a junk journal since that’s how I ended up here today.

Whew.

Thanks for getting to the end of this post and for coming down with me into this rabbit hole. If you are right behind me, let me know what you are going to do with your dried flowers and scrapbooking supplies!