Making a Dry Flower Bouquet

This lesson developed by Reach Out!

Recommended Age: Preschool and Early Elementary




Questions

How do you dry flowers?

Why would you dry flowers?


What You Need
Shoe box Thin wire
Waxed paper Wire snips or scissors
Corn meal Measuring cup
Borax Measuring spoons
Salt Mixing bowl
Ruler Green florist tape
Vase Ribbon
Mixing spoon Some fresh flowers


What You Do

  1. Line your shoebox with waxed paper.
  2. Put 1-1/2 cups of cornmeal, 1-1/2 cups of borax, and 4 tablespoons of salt into your mixing bowl. Stir the ingredients well with a spoon. This will be your "flower drying mix."
  3. Pour this mixture into the bottom of your shoebox about one inch deep.
  4. With your wire snips or scissors, carefully cut your flowers so that they have about a 2-inch stem.
  5. Measure your wire with your ruler. Cut the wire into 4-inch pieces.
  6. Take each flower and carefully push a piece of wire down through the middle of the flower and down into the stem. Poke the wire all the way through the stem so it sticks out of the cut end.
  7. Put your flowers face down onto the drying mix in your shoebox.
  8. Gently pour more of the drying mix into the box until the flowers are all covered up.
  9. Put the lid on the box and put it in a cool and dry place. Leave it alone for 2 or 3 weeks.
  10. After a few weeks, try taking out a flower. If it is really dried out, you are ready to remove all the flowers from the drying mix. If flowers aren't dried out yet, leave them in the mix for another week or so.
  11. Cut 6-, 7- and 8-inch pieces of wire. Wrap the wire with the green florist tape.
  12. Remove the short wire that was in the flowers. Put a longer piece of wire into each flower.
  13. You now have a dried flower bouquet that will last a long time! You can arrange the flowers in a vase, or you can put them into a bouquet and tie some ribbon around them.


What Is Happening

Flowers have lots of moisture in them. When we put them into our drying mixture, it drew out the moisture and the flowers really did dry out. By drying the flowers out like this, you preserved them. They will keep their pretty color and not wilt and die or get moldy.

What other things do we dry out to preserve? Think about raisins, nuts, seeds, banana chips, potato chips. When we dry fruits, veggies and nuts, we preserve them so they won't spoil. Check out a dry soup mix. The ingredients went through a drying process, too. When we add water, the veggies puff back up because they absorb water. Drying things out is a neat process we take for granted every day!



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