MEMORY BEADS

My sister's mother in law passed away about a month ago.  She had just turned 100 in October.  We sent a large bouquet of red roses which she loved.  I had my sister send me the tops of the roses so I could make Memory Beads for the family.

These are the flower tops she sent me.  If you want to dry flower petals, here's the easiest way.

Take a large piece of paper towel and take the best of the petals.  I had to throw away the ones that were brown and I managed to save more by cutting off the tops.  Lay another large piece of paper towel over the petals and roll them in from both sides till it meets in the middle, flatten the two side together so they lay flat in the microwave.  Put them in the microwave for 2 minutes at power level 3 or 4 depending on how strong your microwave is.  Keep your eye on them.  Take them out, unroll and give them air.  Roll them back up and put them back in at the same power level for a minute or a minute and a half.  You will be able to feel if they are dry.

Once they were dried, I put them in a plastic container and snipped them into small pieces with a scissors.

When you incorporate them with polymer clay and run them through the pasta machine, they break up even more.

This is Pardo Translucent clay and gold embossing powder with the dried roses in it.

These are the raw beads before baking.  Notice how white they are.

This is what the beads looked like after baking.  I put 3 coats of glaze on them and re-baked them for an hour.  There was no color added to these.

This is the jar of rose petals that I have left.  I dried 3 sheets of rose petals and got about 3 cups of petals out of them.

This saga will continue another day.  But now you know the quick and easy way to dry flower petals.