cover image Dried Flower Love: Make 18 Inspiring Projects for Your Home

Dried Flower Love: Make 18 Inspiring Projects for Your Home

Ivana Jost. Schiffer Craft, $25.99 (128p) ISBN 978-0-7643-6689-5

Florist Jost debuts with a ho-hum guide to creating dried flower projects. She lists her favorite flowers (hydrangeas, delphiniums), grasses (foxtail, barley), and other greenery (eucalyptus, ragwort) to decorate with and recommends using a hair dryer to clear dust off arrangements. However, the omission of best practices for drying fresh flowers feels like an oversight. The simpler projects include gluing pressed flowers to greeting cards and assembling a bouquet from pampas grass, poppy head, and baby’s breath tied together with raffia ribbon. Among the more involved pieces, the flower crown is made by attaching small bunches of bunny tail grass and broom bloom to a wire headband adorned with a white satin ribbon, and the “Easter hoop” wreath is constructed from jute twine tied around a hoop with blown quail eggs glued on. A few of the projects underwhelm (the ruscus and sea lavender stuck into concrete in the shape of a heart is a bit hackneyed, the impractical “Ostrich Egg Vase” requires tracking down an actual ostrich egg), and the written instructions are sometimes unclear (Jost at one point tells readers to “cut all the dried flowers to the correct length,” but doesn’t specify what that length is), but the visually appealing eucalyptus and “Elegant in Gold” wreaths are worth checking out. This is hit-or-miss. (Aug.)