When you really think about it, there isn’t much that flowers aren’t used for. From home decor to herbal medicine, beauty, and skincare, a lot of the things in the world relate to flowers in more ways than we even think of.
As far as flowers and plants in home decor are concerned, people tend to think that flowers are only good as long as they’re fresh. The moment they start wilting too much, people usually throw them out. What a lot of people don’t realize is that there are many benefits of dried flowers, and that those dried floral arrangements are a really valuable thing going to waste.
You can use dried flowers in decor too, and you can use them in things like scented candles and gift packaging. If you want something more interesting, you should consider making things like phone covers.
Keep reading to find out about all the things you can make around the house with dried flowers.
Make Candles
Scented and unscented candles are one of the best ways to improve the ambience in any room, and a lot of people use them for this very purpose. There’s hardly a selfcare night that would be complete without candles.
All you need to make some beautiful homemade candles with dried flowers is any kind of natural wax like soy wax, dried flowers, the right equipment to melt the wax (you can do it the same way you’d melt chocolate for baking purposes!), a glass container, cotton wick, and essentual oils if you want the candle to be scented.
Once everything is melted and ready to be poured into the glass container, drop some dried flowers into the mix. You can pour them over the candle so they’re visible from the top and also position them to the side of the candle to make sure they’re visible through the glass container.
Wall Art
There’s really no denying the beauty of dried flowers, which is why they often make remarkable wall art that stands out in any interior decor. If you have the creative spark, you can incorporate dried flowers into painitngs, collages, and even some photo frames of their own.
All you need to do in order to make wall art with the flowers is to make sure they’re pressed flat before they dry, and to use your creativity to do the rest. You can stick the flowers to a solid colored background and paste the flowers to them.
Another great way to decorate your walls with flowers is to stick the flowers to a piece of string and hang that arranegement on the walls in different shapes or in vertical or horizontal lines.
Glass Pressed Flowers
For decor that’s meant to be viewed from all angles, glass pressed flowers can be a great piece of decor.
When you pick fresh flowers or buy a fresh floral arrangement, wrap the flowers in some paper and press them flat in between the pages of a book until they’re dry. Once that happens, you can put the flowers in between two sheets of glass and display the glass either on a wall or on a table.
Make sure the flowers are completely dry before putting them between the glass sheets, and feel free to add smaller flowers like baby’s breath, small leaves, and twigs for aesthetic effect.
Make Some Potpourri
Flowers like chrysanthemum, roses, geraniums, and pansies are great for any potpourri. The other ingredients that go in the potpourri include fixatives to make the mix last longer, some essential oils, and crushed plant material.
Depending on the method you use to prepare potpourri, it can take anywhere between one month to six months to prepare the mix. But once everything is ready, it’s more than worth it.
If you’re making wet potpourri, crush all of your plant matter up when it’s died and add it to a container. Then add a salt mixture to the container in another layer – this is made up of all the things that go into your potpourri – and keep layering until you’re happy with the result.
Once you’re happy with the layers, you can leave the mix to set until it’s ready. This can be upto six months, but not if you make the potpourri with mainly dry ingredients – that mix is ready in about a month.
Dried Floral Arrangements
If you want to add flowers in the home but don’t want the vibrancy and brightness most have to offer, consider putting dried floral arrangements in your vases instead of fresh floral arrangements.
Not only are dried flowers a great idea for more subtle home decor, but they also last much longer than fresh flowers do. When preserved properly, the flowers can last upto a year! Just tie some flowers together with the help of a rubber band and hang them upside down in a well-ventilated and dark room. The ventilation with ensure that they dry properly, and the darkness is to prevent the flowers from loosing too much color while they dry – they will be up there for about two to three weeks, and the goal for drying them is to give them a darker hue, not to rid them of color entirely.
Make a Phone Case
Making a pressed flower phone case with dried and pressed flowers is easier than it looks. For one, all you need are pressed flowers that you’ve dried for a few weeks, vinyl glue, a clear phone cover, and a paintbrush.
Lay the clear phone case down and decide how you want to place the leaves and the flowers. Once you’ve decided on the composition, take a photo to save your design and get to work on the glue. Mix the vinyl glue with water in a 1:1 ratio, and then use the paintbrush to stick the leaves and flowers to the phone case using it.
Let that coat dry completely before applying a new coat of the vinyl glue mixture over the flowers and the leaves. Let that dry too before adding an even bigger coat of vinyl glue all over the phone case, and let it dry before adding another coat.
Now, you’re supposed to let this phone case dry for a few hours or overnight before it’s ready to use. You now have a beautiful dried flower phone case.
