How to Preserve Flowers in Sand

Ingredients

• nice, clean, dry sand
• Pluck your flowers as freshly blown as possible

Method

1. 1

   Cover the bottom of the box with sand.

2. 2

   Rest the stem part of a flower on the sand, letting each petal fall in its natural position.

3. 3

   Fill every interstice with sand while building up evenly and neatly around it.

As published

This recipe was extracted from The hearthstone; or, Life at home (1883) by Laura C. Holloway, page 175. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

How TO Preserve Flowers in Sand. — While our art lovers warmly applaud all successful efforts to represent nature for the adorn- ment of our homes, the art of imprisoning real bits of nature for the same purpose is not sufficiently studied. The neglect of some of the pretty means of installing art in our homes is greatly observable in the preparation of flowers and leaves of all kinds for winter use. As usually pressed, they are flat and unnatural, and their fibres being packed closely and forced into straight lines, are extremely brit- tle. In the pretty ferns and autumn leaves, their delicate veinings are obliterated, and their characteristic dimples conventionalized away, while a pressed rose is no more like a rose than your best friend would be like herself if passed between the rollers of a paper mill. The best plan, but one which is not generally known, or used, is to press in sand, and this can be done as follows: Procure nice, clean, dry sand, white is preferable, and for white flowers indispensa- ble, if their pure tone would be retained. Pluck your flowers as freshly blown as possible

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.