Glycerin Experiment
with Fig Leaves

I had to trimm my Fig Tree, but didn’t want the leaves to go to waste… They seemed like perfect candidates to finally test preserving leaves in glycerin.

You can find different recipies, I used a 50/50 glycerin x water ratio (300ml each, to be precise). Just stack the leaves and make sure the mixture gets inbetween the layers.

PRO tip from @crochetcrazyhelen – By taking the stems off, the leaves fill themselves with glycerin due to capillary action!

Next, put the leaves away for 3-4 days in the dark. By putting a similar, weighed down container on top, they stay inside the liquid. The leaves that were too dry and curled up already, I grinded in the blender to make ink of later.

After 3 days, I took the leaves out by letting them drip for a bit and restacked them in paper towels. They are as good as dry after that, but you can gently dab what remains.

The leaves will keep a silky ‘shine’ like they are wet,
but weirdly enough also feel ‘sandpapery’ like the original leaf. They didn’t curl up at all and basicly kept the colour they had, when they went in, so YAY!

I need the leaves to be as flat as possible, so I stored them in the flower press. To be continued 😊

#glycerin #preservation #experiment #fig #leaves