by The Funky Olive

Created on: April 24, 2006   Last Updated: May 02, 2007

Many flowers that can be dried successfully in a microwave - gerber daisies, roses, chrysanthemums, buttercups, cosmos, daffodils, tulips, daylilies, delphiniums, pansies, hollyhocks, hydrangeas, lilacs, and many others. Some of the flowers with thicker petals, such as magnolias and hyacinths are not advisable to dry in your microwave. You can also do the foliage, which dries exceptionally well in a microwave oven.

For microwave drying, it is best to use flowers just before they are fully opened, as fully opened flowers will quite often lose their petals after the drying process.

Make sure you support your flowers with a desiccating material so that they dry in their normal shape and form. You can use a borax/sand (2:1) mixture, or even kitty litter will do, but silica gel, available from your craft supply store works best.

In a microwave safe container, pour about an inch of desiccating material.

Take your flower and cut the stem to about a half inch and pierce it into the material so it is standing upright.

If you have room in your container, add additional flowers, being careful to leave space between them, and about an inch all around the edge of the container.

Once you have all your flowers in place, pour the desiccating material along the outer edge of the container, away from the flower(s). Build it up so it is a continuous mound about an inch high. Now lightly tap on the container so the material moves towards the flower(s). By pouring the material around the edge and lightly tapping the container, you won't alter the form of the petals, than if you rather poured it on top of the flowers, which would weigh down the petals causing them to loose their natural shape.

Continue adding the material around the edge and lightly tapping on the container until the flower(s) are completely covered.

Finally, cover the entire container with another inch of the material above the top of the flower(s).

Now we're going to micro-dry them! If your microwave has a defrost setting (about 200 watts), use that setting. If not, then use a setting of 4 (that's about 300 watts) if your microwave has about 10 settings, which is pretty standard. It takes approximately two and a half minutes to dry flowers in half a pound of silica gel.

The best way to determine the length of time needed is to use a microwavable thermometer, which contains no metal. Place your thermometer into the silica gel about a half an inch from the covered flower(s). Be careful not stab any of the petals when you

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