Roses are rust, violets are dead, don't give me flowers or I will behead !

With valetine's day a distant memory the flowers I received are fading fast now...so my brain flashed a fab idea of ' I know I'll press the remaining little beauties'.  So here they are (were) in all there glory ...
Dancing with glee around the house, thinking of my brilliant-ness (is that a word?)...I found my flower press. This is the same press I've had since I was 6 years old, so that makes the flower press em..well..okay, I'm giving away my age here...28 eeeek !!! I'm sure my age doesn't count if I don't say it out loud, hmm I wonder when one can 'officially' start counting backwards? Anyone know?  If my two children have anything to do with it though they'd correct me if I lied (mummy's don't lie) bent the truth about my age, okay hands up I admit it - I'm 34 - going on 24 I like to think.  Infact my youngest said to me the other day "Mum, your not like the other mums"..."you look like a teenager" Not quite sure what a five year old means by this but hell I'll take it as a compliment.  Back to the flower press...

In all it's 1980's glory...I haven't used it for ages, I'd  found it in my mums loft, after pinging of the wing nuts, I peeled the paper apart to find that it wasn't empty - aah now vague memories of trying to press a single rose came flooding back.  So I had used it a few months ago, maybe last summer?, goodness knows...the paper is all stuck together, the flower has gone mouldy, and the paper is prity much useless, or over-used, which ever way you look at it.

Now I'm no expert on squashing the living day-lights out of defenceless flowers, did I have it in too long?...Most probably, should I have at least renewed the 28 year old paper? Highly likely...am I rubbish at flower pressing? Most definitely!!

And here is my poor fusty rose, no longer the vibrant red it once was, alas it's turned a rust colour, with hairs growing out of the mouldy bits.  Now my question is what, if anything, can i do with it? Only composting springs to mind.  So if any of you lovely crafty people out there know how I can preserve my current bouquet...I'd really, REALLY, REALLY appreciate your wisdom...X

2 comments:

Fleurs de Perles said...

haha .. excellent. So have I Marice. :) I've put up a link and an explanation as to why I nominated you in my blog.

Sorry I don't have any tips for flower pressing ... !!

Hilary said...

I'd say blogging about it was a pretty good way of preserving it forever!