How I Dry Flowers

I love when people give a sneak peek of what their “behind the scenes” looks like. I know I have told you before that I love dried flowers and you know I have a whole series on them. When I was in graduate school I had a smaller studio all to myself, which I spent just about every day in and absolutely loved! I would photograph the flowers that I had just purchased and then, if it was already wilting, I would hang them from my metal rack with clothes pins. My studio was COVERED in dry flowers! I couldn’t bear to get rid of the flowers yet when there was still so much beauty waiting to be photographed! 

When we graduated I had to pack up my studio and I took many of those flowers home with me. A couple of years after that we moved from the San Francisco Bay Area back to Phoenix and that same box of flowers made that long trip with us! I had that same box of flowers for quite a few years. During one of our many moves in the first years we were back in Phoenix, we ended up moving 5 times, including from the Bay Area, in five years, which was A LOT of transition, the flowers had finally had enough of being moved from one spot to the next and I let those dried flowers go.

This wonderful hanger displays my flowers and dries them perfectly!

Obviously, I still have an obsession with dried flowers and I still have them around my art studio while they wait to be photographed. There are times that I get them right off of the plant, pick them out of a bouquet that is wilting, and of course when I have finished photographing them. I got this amazing little drying rack, for clothes, that I hung and now it dries my flowers and it displays them so beautifully for me to see every time I walk in the room. 

The flowers that were forgotten while we were out of town but still have so much character.

The kids and I went to Minnesota a few weeks ago and I bought some peonies right before I left, thinking that I would have free time before we left, spoiler alert, I was wrong! My flowers got left in the vase they were in the whole time that we were gone! They dried very nicely and are continuing to hang out in the vase until it is time to move them. (It’s only 112 degrees Fahrenheit outside right now and I work in a non-air-conditioned area.) But I just want you to share that even when they are forgotten in a vase they can still dry in a beautiful way!

Flowers taken from my parent’s house from a bouquet for my dad’s 90th birthday.

I hope that this peek into my dried flowers was interesting and helpful! Soon I hope to press flowers, which I do have some hidden away, and talk to you about those as well! Let me know if this inspires to as well to give drying flowers a go!