Breathing New Life Into Vintage Flowers....

Since I am on a hiatus from sewing until mid to late January and going absolutely crazy because of it, I thought I would go through my stashes of various things that I use in my sewing and hat making to clean, sort, toss and inventory.  Today, I decided to breathe new life into some of my vintage millinery flowers.  These came to me all smashed up and sad looking, but with a little steam and patience, these sad little flowers can once again be the lovely creations they were when they were new! 

Here are the sad little darlings....smashed from years of being stored in a box.

Seriously smooshed...

I started a kettle of water on to boil and held the flower over the steam about 5-6 inches above the pot...

In only a few seconds, you can already see the velvet and organza petals starting to flex and open.  There is a very interesting kind of hissing sound that emanates from the flower, but not to worry...nothing will explode!  

After about a minute, turn the flower over and you can see it open!

If the flower is having problems opening, just take the still warm petals and coax them to whatever shape you desire!!

Sad little pink flower....

Again, hold the flower about 5-6 inches over the pot in the steam....

Ta Da!!!  A lovely flower appears!!

Last one.  This one was just all smooshed to heck.  The velvet and organza petals were really messed up...

This one took a while as it didn't feel inclined to cooperate..

Here we see the petals opening up a little.  I had to work with it on the counter while it was still warm and manipulate the petals until I got it the way I wanted it to look...you will see the finished product below...

Refreshed vintage flowers!  All you need is steam and a little patience and sad little flowers can become gorgeous ones once again!  I actually did this with flowers that were already on a hat.  My huge Titanic poppy hat that I wear with the Ruth DeWitt Bukater tea dress got caught in the rain during a parade.  The flowers folded over from the wet and then dried in that shape.  When I got the hat back, I started some water to boiling and re-fluffed the poppies!  Worked like a charm!