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Flower drying is easy and fun if you know just which flowers to dry. By the process I use, the flowers when dried appear like freshly-picked ones. When properly mounted and framed, flower pictures are truly beautiful, for the colors and shapes of the flowers have been well preserved. Such a flower picture should last for four or five years or longer.

About a year ago, before I moved to Alexandria, Minnesota, I had a booth at the Good Neighbor Fair which is held annually in Buffalo, New York, under the sponsorship of the Advertising Women's Association. In less than four hours, my entire stock of real flower pictures were sold, and my sales amounted to $109.15. If I had anticipated such a tremendous demand, I would have made up far more flower pictures for the fair than I did. Many asked me to take their names and addresses for future delivery of flower pictures. So you can see that real flower pictures are something out of the ordinary, and people buy them readily not only for their own homes, but for gifts.

THOUGH THE process of making flower pictures is not difficult, you will learn much from actual practice. Your first flower pictures may not please you completely, but no hobby or skill is learned in one brief attempt. If you continue with this fascinating hobby, you will find your skill increasing and your enjoyment mounting with every pan of flowers you dry. Your husband, poor man, hoping to sniff his favorite pie baking in the oven, will open the oven door to be confronted with pans of sand. It will not be long, however, before he will be very proud of your flower pictures, and he will be showing them to your friends.

Only certain flowers will dry well, that is, keep their colors and shapes. I have had the most success drying pansies, (yellow, purple, maroon, brown, and violet), bachelor buttons, forget-me-nots, (also the Chinese forget-me-not), baby's breath, Mexican zinnias, Dorothy Perkins roses, grape hyacinth, purple asters, wild roses, white daisies, delphinium, black-eyed susans, larkspur (all colors), candytuft, and coralbells. Queen Anne's lace also dries well. I have not been successful in drying any wild flowers.

For foliage for my flower pictures I buy what is known at the florist's as asparagus fern. I dry it the same way as I do the flowers. Twenty-five or thirty cents will buy a good supply of the fern.

Pick your flowers as soon as they are in full blossom. Do not wait until the petals are about to fall before you dry them. Do not pick the flowers and put them in water in a vase, drying them days later. Do not pick the flowers when they are wet with rain or dew. Pick your flowers so that they will have stems about ¾ inch long. Pick the rest of the stems, as these also must be dried, for you will need lots of stems to make your flower pictures. I also pick small buds which I dry with the flowers, for the small buds add much interest to the flower arrangement.

I USE square or oblong cake pans, tin or Pyrex, to dry the flowers, stems, and fern. Do not use pans that are too large, for they are too heavy to handle when the sand is in them. The sand you should use can be obtained from various sources. The sand that department stores sell for sandbox use is satisfactory. Also, any company that sells building supplies can usually supply you with good white sand. The sand must not have any sharp particles in it which would cut the flower petals.

Pour approximately one inch of sand into your pans, place your flowers face down and carefully push the sand under the petals so that they will not dry flat. Pour another inch of sand very carefully over the flowers. Place the pans in a 200-degree oven and bake for about two hours. White daisies should be baked a little less than two hours to prevent them from turning yellowish. You will learn much from your own experimenting. One good test is this: when you pour the sand off one corner of the pan and carefully lift out the flowers, you have baked them too long if the flowers look dull and dark. When you find them droopy and damp, they have not been baked long enough.

When the flowers are baked just the right length of time, they should appear very much like they did before you dried them. The flowers are easily damaged when first taken from the pan, so let them lie on the table on a paper for a little while, and you will notice that they regain some of their original softness. You will find that tweezers are handy to use when lifting the flowers from the pans or in the mounting process.

After awhile, take a small clean soft brush and carefully brush all the sand particles off that have remained on the flower petals. If you do not plan to proceed with your flower picture at this time, place your dried flowers in boxes face down. (Then when I make my pictures, I turn them over so I can see which ones I want to use.) I store my pansies in different boxes according to color, bachelor buttons in one box, daisies in another, and so on. I label the boxes so that I can very easily select the kind of flowers I wish to use for a picture without wasting time looking through all the boxes. I store the fern in a box along with the dried flower stems. Be sure to dry an ample supply of flowers, stems, and buds because then you can make flower pictures while outside the snow swirls and the wind howls.

THE FRAMING of your flower pictures is very important. There are two types of frames which are ideal. The first is a frame with convex glass, which gives ample room under the glass for the flower arrangement. The flower arrangement should never touch the glass. You must have room under the glass for your three-dimensional bouquet. I have purchased excellent small and large frames with convex glass at secondhand stores and at rummage sales. The frames can often be made attractive by applying a coat of good gold paint. Five and ten cent stores from time to time carry in stock a variety of frames which have convex glass. Also, convex glass circles can be ordered from companies which sell hobby supplies, and then in place of a frame, a colored adhesive tape can be used around the rim of the glass. If desired, lace or fancy braid can be cemented on top of the tape to form a more attractive border.

The second type of frame ideal for flower pictures is really a frame on a frame, which gives a shadow-box effect. This type of frame also gives plenty of depth for the flower arrangement. If you have a husband with a carpentry thumb, you can buy an ordinary frame at any secondhand store or rummage sale, and your husband can make moulding or purchase it from a lumber company and make a frame to fit under the glass of the frame you bought. The moulding costs from 3 to 9 cents per foot. This will enable you to have a handsome frame-on-frame at a minimum of cost. Before joining the two frames, paint or gild them, or paint the frames different colors. The bottom frame can be screwed or cemented to the top frame. The glass is between the two frames, and your mat board with the flower arrangement should be fastened with cement along the edges to the back of the second frame. Always cover the back of your flower pictures with brown paper, using glue or cement to make the paper fit smoothly and tightly so that no dust can get into your flower pictures.

You can use any ordinary frame for your flower pictures if the frame has enough depth. However, it is somewhat difficult to purchase a regular frame with enough depth, and your flower picture will not look well if the flowers are pressed against the glass. My husband made some frames with adequate depth by using a deep moulding and cementing small strips of wood around the inside of the glass edge to hold the glass in place. This deep moulding provided ample room for the flower arrangement. The moulding can be painted, gilded, stained, or finished in any way you prefer.

THE FLOWERS are mounted on white pebbleboard, which most stationery stores or art supply stores carry in stock. A large sheet of it can be purchased for under $1. Measure the size you need to cut for your frame. If it is an oval frame, you can place the frame on the pebbleboard, outline it lightly with a pencil, and using a razor (and do not use your husband's good one!) trace the pencil outline. Then using an old pair of scissors, you can easily cut the pebbleboard. Using the razor first makes the scissor cutting easier. It is also possible to buy a lighter-weight pebbleboard.

Before I cement the flowers into an arrangement, I sometimes use water colors to tint the upper two-thirds of the pebbleboard one color and tint the lower third a light green. Other pictures are made attractive with the entire background tinted a violet, light blue, or light green. When using a very large frame, I do not tint the pebbleboard and the tinting is in no way essential for any of the pictures.

I begin the arrangement by selecting three or four stems and placing them where I shall later fasten them with transparent cement. Then I place sprigs of fern at either side near the stems, and smaller pieces above. Next, I place several flowers over the tops of the stems, and place sprays of forget-me-nots, baby's breath, larkspur, and small buds in a semi-circle above. I then add more flowers to fill in the center arrangement, and add a bud or two near the lower part. Then I make a mental note of the arrangement or sketch it quickly on a piece of paper and carefully remove the flowers, stems, and fern. The second time, using transparent cement, I actually fasten the stem tops and fern ends, flowers, etc. The cement can be dabbed on the flower stems or cement can be put on the pebbleboard in small dabs and the stems and flowers placed on it. You will find after practice that you will be able to arrange the flowers very attractively with ease.

You can copy flower arrangements from greeting cards, magazine, or calendars, but it is more fun to devise your own arrangements. I like to arrange the flowers so that they appear in a pleasing graceful manner to me, but I do follow the simple rules of flower arranging such as placing the flowers of deeper color toward the bottom and placing flowers which are white or lighter in color farther up. I use many little sprigs of larkspur, forget-me-not, and baby's breath and buds around the outer edge of the arrangement, which adds to its daintiness.

IF YOU do not wish to make flower pictures to sell, you will nevertheless, derive much satisfaction from making flower pictures to beautify your home. Real flower pictures also make wonderful Christmas gifts, and you will be thanked and thanked again by the recipients, for flower pictures are delightfully different. For the friend who is ill, a flower picture on the wall by her bed will bring much joy. They are also excellent for birthday gifts, thank-you gifts, for wedding showers, and for almost every gift-giving occasion.

However, if you wish to make your hobby profitable, there are many ways of accomplishing this. All cities are not so fortunate as to have a Good Neighbor Fair, though I would strongly recommend this project, for it has been highly successful in Buffalo. Many months before the fair, preliminary meetings are held where interested women may exhibit samples of their work. The women are chosen at these meetings who are to have booths at the fair, and those chosen are the ones whose handicraft products have been expertly and beautifully made. Then, too, a variety of handicraft must be chosen. A small registration fee is paid by the women who are chosen to have booths.

Perhaps your town has a Woman's Exchange where your pictures can be offered for sale. Of course, a certain percentage of your sales will be withheld, but usually it is a very reasonable amount.

I have sold many flower pictures right in my home. Once your friends see your lovely flower pictures, they will want some for themselves or for gifts. As soon as you have sold a few flower pictures, others will see them in homes of your friends, and your telephone will be ringing.

Be sure to have your name, address, and telephone number on the back of every flower picture you make and sell so that the purchaser can re-order later if she desires.

You will be confronted by the problem of pricing your pictures. I sold my pictures at the Good Neighbor Fair for from $2 up to $10. The selling price should depend on the cost of the frame and the size of the picture, that is, the number of flowers it contains. Also, as your skill increases, you can rightfully charge more for your pictures.