The Power of a Dried Flower
When a flood in Louisa Jaggar's Glen Echo, Md., home ruined her kids' artwork, she sat on the basement steps and cried. Then she called Don Williams, a senior conservator at the Smithsonian Institution, and they wrote Saving Stuff (Fireside, $16), on how to preserve everything from macaroni-and-bean mosaics to Victrolas. For prom and wedding season, Williams showed us how to preserve a corsage.
1 Hunt and gather. You'll need an airtight container; the wide-mouthed plastic jars that mayonnaise and pretzels come in are perfect and don't break when dropped. Also, pick up some silica gel from a craft store.
2 Dry. Handling your corsage with gloves on, set it in the jar on top of a 1-inch layer of the silica gel. Spread out the flowers and greens exactly the way you want them, because they'll dry that way. Close the jar and leave it for a week or more so the gel can suck out the plants' moisture.
3 Enshrine. Keep the flowers in a bugproof container like a clear acrylic display case from a craft store. Store it in a cool, dark place but not in the attic or basement, where fluctuations in temperature and humidity--and floods--can be the end of a memory.
4 Record. With india ink (it'll never fade) and rag paper used in fancy stationery, write down the story and keep it with the corsage, so no one ever decides to use your history for mulch.
This story appears in the June 6, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.