← A supersimple guide.
What you’ll need:
- small cutting or leaf
- glycerin
- shallow dish
- weight (another dish, etc.)
- 3-5 days
Step 1: find a neat trimming, leaf or stem (clean/dry but not brittle/smallish/no dead bits). This one has browning edges but it looked like the perfect little branch when I found it on the sidewalk, so it will be preserved as-is.
Step 2: find a vessel. Find a shallow dish and something to weigh it all down. It has to be something you can leave alone for about a week while it “cures”.
Step 3 (no photo): Get some glycerin. The solution you need is simply water + glycerin, 2:1.
3a: Mix the solution. The average you’ll need for smallish pieces is about a cup total of liquid, depending on depth of dish. I mixed with my finger since it is safe and I am not fancy, but you can use anything else stirry, like a chopstick. Or if you are fancy, one of these.
3b: Solution level. Place a bit of weight on it so that it’s fully submerged. Not recommended: book.
4: Find somewhere to leave it for 3-5 days
The bathroom sink won’t mind tending to it while we’re away for the weekend.
For more serious guides on preserving cuttings, see the following crazy pdfs:
crazy
crazier
