Dried Flowers and Leaves

Do you remember my flower press? (click here) It is about time I let you guys know how this experiment turned out. I let the flowers and leaves dry a few weeks, and when it was finally time to open the press and see the results, I was very exited and curious! But my excitement died a little when I saw that the previously pretty and colourful flowers had been turned into fade, dirty looking and rippled ones. :( I knew they would loose some of their colours, but I didn't know they would become quite that fade, and didn't think the white would become quite that brown!

As you can see, the pretty red poppy flowers are now a dull pink. The pure white flowers became brown and spotted. The rich pink ones and the purple ones became dark fade violet.
However, the tiny blue/purple ones are the ones who survived the drying process the best by keeping both a nice shape and a vibrant colour.
I also made the mistake to use rippled cardboard. It was not rippled on the surface, but once pressed, the texture showed through and as clearly visible on the far right of the picture, printed itself on the delicate flowers. What a sad result. :( Lesson learned!

But all was not lost! The leaves, which are by nature more robust to start with, turned out pretty well! They dried nicely and retained most of their lovely green shades.

These are now stored safely for future use. I'm sure I'll be happy to get a little taste of summer by finding and using them in a project somewhere in the middle of the cold season. We'll see.

I will of course try again with different flowers and with even more leaves. I think some flowers react better to drying than others, so it will be a little quest to find out which ones give good results, and which ones should be avoided.