Here are useful tips to get you started designing with Drieds.

Opening Dried and Preserved Roses

When working with dried roses, keep a tea kettle of water in your design area for steaming. Hold rose head in steam for a few seconds. Then, blow directly into blossom. The rose will open to about three times the dried size. Shape the petals with your fingers.

Using Pods and Sticks

When using hot melt glue with pods or glossy finish sticks, first scrape or sand the surface of the material. Roughening the surface and removing the slick finish makes the glue adhere securely. Scrape or break cinnamon sticks to release the fragrance.

Bunching Small Flowers

For design labor efficiency, reduce the number of insertions in a dried arrangement by bunching smaller flowers and materials into clusters.

The Wire Pick Method

Group the materials in your fingers. Place a wired wooden pick alongside the materials and attach with the wire. Sometimes, taping around the picked materials forms a firmer grouping for inserting into a design.

Reconditioning Natural Flowers

Enhance the beauty of most dried flowers by lightly moistening them with water from a spritzer, or by steaming with a clothes steamer. Use this conditioning process just prior to designing. The materials will be more pliable and naturally shaped.

Misting

Misting enhances garden dried flowers in similar fashion as steaming. Misting makes materials more pliable. Misting is a longer reconditioning process than steaming, whereby materials need to dry thoroughly before using.

Steaming

Use a steaming tea kettle or humidifier to recondition most garden dried flowers. Steaming fluffs fuller blossoms like Hydrangea and fillers like gyps, German Statice, Caspia, and Broom Bloom. Steaming relaxes Canella, enabling you to form it into desirable lines and curves. Steaming loosens natural Larkspur florets making the spikes fuller.

Displaying Dried and Preserved Materials

We recommend storing and displaying preserved and dried products in climate controlled environments, out of direct sunlight and humidity. In some conditions, moisture may cause preserved materials to drip/bleed glycerin and dye. When using preserved foliage, protect furniture and linens by placing a covering between your arrangement and the surface it rests upon.

Caution! Avoid Moisture for Dyed and Preserved Foliages

Be careful where you use dyed and preserved foliage. If placed in high humidity or in damp outside weather conditions, they might absorb enough moisture to drip, and the dye might run. Any dyed and preserved materials that have a tendency to bleed, such as Oak, Leatherleaf, Galax and Magnolia leaves, should not be exposed to moisture.

Storing Dried and Preserved Flowers

All natural dried materials/garden flowers have limited life. They are simply fresh materials with extended life. Keep unused dried flowers and grasses in plastic bags. This method of storage keeps them from getting too dry and brittle in a heated or air-conditioned room. Keep garden dried flowers in an atmosphere with consistent temperature and moisture. When garden dried flowers are in fluctuating conditions of temperature and humidity, they have a tendency to lose a little color each time there is an extreme change. Placing many dried flowers and grasses in the refrigerator does improve pliability. Do not store dried materials in refrigeration for more than a day or two as they might mold.

Undesirable Aroma

Any unusual aroma will typically clear after the product has aired for a few days. In the interim, you may mist the product with any air freshener.

Mosses

Lightly misting green mosses with Design Master Dipit Dip & Rinse Floral Dye or a similar product enriches the color of any moss that has faded color.

Touch Up

Use spray paint to touch up any damaged painted material. Often, toning the color with a lighter or darker value is better than trying to match the color exactly.

Final Finish

Spray your dried arrangements with a light covering of Design Master Super Surface Sealer or another clear pre-treatment sealer. This coating protects the natural beauty of dried materials and prevents the shattering of fragile flowers.