What you will need for this project:
- 2 heavy microwave safe plates
- Paper towel
- Flowers or greenery
- Frames
Quick and Easy Dried Flowers
3 Materials
$20
5 Minutes
Easy
We’ve been wanting do a gallery wall in our front hall for a while now. First step is finding enough interesting pieces to make up a nice gallery! So I decided to make a few pieces myself using a very easy and very quick flower drying technique.
I love the simple look of specimen art so I decided to recreate that using dried flowers.
I experimented with a bunch of different flowers using a bouquet (thanks Matt) that was about to turn. I tried different ones until I got the look I wanted.
I used heavy clay plates for this project.
You will want to first prep your flowers by cutting them as close to the bud as possible. You will want your flower to be as flat as possible so get rid of anything that isn’t visually appealing and adds bulk.
You will then want to line your plate with a few sheets of paper towel. The paper towel will absorb and pull away the excess water from the flowers, allowing the flower to dry.
After the paper towel is in place you can place your flowers on the paper towel lined plate. Remember that this is how your flower is going to dry and harden so place them with care and adjust as you like.
Place an additional paper towel on top of the flower and secure in place by adding the second plate on top. Like a flower sandwich with the plates as bread!
Not happy I forgot to clean the microwave before I took this pic! haha
Next is to start microwaving, this will be a bit of trial and error, so go slow. This depends on the strength of your microwave. I placed my flower sandwich in the microwave for 30 second intervals and checked them. A few of the pieces I used had a lot of moisture in them so I left them in a bit longer, and replaced the paper towel in between sessions so they would be sitting in soggy paper and were able to crisp up nicely. My average microwave time was between 1 and1.5 minutes.
When you take your plates out of the microwave please wear gloves and be very careful. They will be very hot!
After my flowers were removed from the plates I carefully moved them to a fresh and dry paper towel to cool off and crisp up. I left them out overnight and they were perfect in the morning.
I placed them sparsely in simple frames and I’m so happy with how they turned out.
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3 of 12 comments
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Celestine Williamson May 4, 2020GOODMORNING, this is a very beautiful project thanx for sharing, I do want to know if the clay plates make a big difference in how well the flowers dyer out verses regular plastic microwave plates.. Just curious because it seems it would..
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Kathy France7 days agoThese are beautiful! I'm going to try it. Thanks for sharing your talent with us.
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Abby and Matt7 days agoThank you so much Kathy! That is just so sweet of you to say. If you ever try the project, tag me on instagram @taldorkandmatching
I would love to see!
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Have a question about this project?
Do you spray them with hair spray after they are dried to keep them from cracking up???
Hairspray can become really sticky over time and make it impossible to dust and clean dried flowers. I have found that using a matte poly spray with a very light hand. Just spray enough to coat them and preserve them.
Not suggesting to do this to the framed ones.
You could use a spray lacquer as well, which is why people used hairspray.
GOODMORNING, this is so beautiful as a wonderful idea to safe flowers that you LOVE and dingy want to th through out. Does the clayplates make a difference in the drying verses a regular microwave plate? I'm thinking it would but want to make sure.
Hey! The heavier the plate the better so they flatten nicely. If you plates are lighter you can always add 2 plates instead if one on top to add some weight!