I hope you had a lovely holiday! But it is time to get back to work. Trouble is, when everything is covered with snow and the plants are asleep, it can be a bit of a challenge to get anything done.
What with art fairs and then my husband's mishaps last summer I couldn't get to all the iris, so I froze them by taking the flowers apart and placing the petals between layers of wax paper and sliding the little packets into upcycled plastic zip bags from the kitchen. As you can see they start to bleed as they thaw, so it is advisable to wear gloves and work quickly. You could probably press and dry them, I haven't done this with iris, but I have with hollyhocks and the color is not quite the same. Freezing them gives a result more like fresh flowers. There always seems to be enough room in the freezer for our food and to tuck in a few flowers here and there. The fabric is silk crepe de chine with pre-applied rusty nails.
I also used some spiral eucalyptus from the florist and left over poinsettia leaves, both red and green. Iris petals don't print, but do dye the fabric
So with a little pre-planning it is possible to eco print when the weather outside is frightful.
Have a wonderfully prosperous New Year!
Hi Nan,
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Why do you layer the flowers between wax paper, is it to avoid that they curl up?
I have some flowers in the freezer, and some crumble and loose their colour, others are colour-intact...do you have any experience with that?
Thanks
Br Stine
I used to throw iris, whole, in bags and freeze them that way-what a mess when they thawed! And, it took up a lot of room in the freezer. So this time around I decided to take the flowers apart and press them. I was concerned the petals would stick to newspaper, so I used wax paper and then put them in plastic zip bags to try to keep them from "freeze drying". Keeping the air off them helps to keep them from degrading, just as with food, in the freezer. Anyway, the color from dried petals is different, not bad, just different, so if I have the room I like to freeze some. I try to use those within 6 months of freezing though as the longer they sit the more they do degrade. Hope this helps. Thanks for stopping by!
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