People have asked me what happens to my roses when they get wet.  My gut response has always been, “They’re made of paper, don’t get them wet!”.  But I’m finding that might not be a good response.  What if a bride is getting married outside?  While she doesn’t plan for it to rain, there is the possibility it will start to sprinkle during the ceremony.  The last thing you want on your wedding day is for your flowers to disintegrate before all your photos are taken.  So, that has gotten my brain pumping to figure out a solution.  One of the things on my to-do list for this week was to experiment with water and sealant.  Today is the day.  Results aren’t conclusive yet as some overnight drying is needed, but I thought I’d share the preliminary results.

Truth #1 – when paper gets wet it gets flimsy.  Seems like rocket science right?  Who hasn’t gotten paper wet?  Yeah, so this is a given.  But, with the paper I use, it does not tear and fall apart easily.  So yay!  The flowers won’t fall to pieces if they get wet!  They will get flimsy though.  The petals may fall with the weight of the water and droop until they dry out again.  And, they uncurl.  Just like if you curl your hair and then go out in the rain, the curl will fall out.  Now this is with a LOT of water.  Not like a few drops, this would be if there was a sudden downpour.  I thought I should test with worst case scenarios.

Truth #2 – the color will NOT bleed.  This was a huge happy dance for me.  The last thing a bride wants is for her bright pink roses to turn her nice white wedding dress pink.  The colors don’t bleed.  I dunked petals and a whole rose and placed them on white paper towel.  No discoloration.  And as much as I rub it on my skin, no color left behind.

Truth #2.5 – the colors stay put on the rose.  I was worried that getting them wet could make the paint on the rose itself move and create water lines.  No such thing happened.  Another plus!

I have a rose that I sprayed with sealant that is holding up well.  It has a bit of a crunchy texture now, a little stiff, but it is not glossy which was my main concern.  I don’t want my flowers to be shiny.  So far so good.  It’s dry now and looks exactly the same as before I sealed it which is good.  Right now it reeks of a spray paint type smell though.  I’m going to let it sit overnight to see if that goes away (I also don’t want them to smell terrible!), and then I’m going to dunk this one and see how water affects the rose once sealed.

All in all, tests are going very well!  Hope to have more to report in the next couple days!  This could be a huge selling point if I can say that they are sealed as to prevent any water damage.  Fingers crossed it works out well!