DIY | How to make Wax Roses

With today’s step by step tutorial I’ll show you how you can easily make a wax rose yourself!

The rose is one of the most beautiful flowers for me. Luckily, there are great ways to preserve their beauty. A common method is air drying the roses. Other common methods are the use of silica gel or to put the roses in a glycerin-water mixture. Today, I want to show you another preservation method: the use of liquid wax. After preservation, you can use the waxed rose for a flower arrangement.

Tools

Here you see the tools I used to make the waxed rose DIY: a pair of flower scissors, an old glass jar to melt the wax residue, and an old glass bowl of cold water to dip the wax rose in at the end.

Tool	Search on
Flowers scissors	*
I use the Japanese flower scissors Okatsune 304	*
Glass bowl	*

Materials

These are the materials I used for the wax rose: a fresh rose, wax scraps (candle scraps), and two skewers.

Material	Search on
Rose	*
Wax scraps	*
Skewers	*

Guide| Make a wax rose yourself

Step 1: Remove rose stem

In the first step, I cut the rose stem slightly below the petals with the flower scissors.

Step 2: Put rose on skewer

Now the tip of the skewer is inserted through the rose head.

Step 3: Heat up wax

Now the wax is melted. Before you get started, here are a few tips:

Protect your workplace and your hands from the hot wax.
Use only old containers for the wax, it is rather difficult to remove the wax afterwards.
I melt the wax very slowly in a glass jar in the microwave.
You can also melt the wax in a water bath, then make sure that you use an old pot. In addition, the pot should be only a little bit larger than the glass jar, so that it can not tip over in it.
The opening of the glass jar should be large enough for the rose to fit through.
The wax should not be too hot, otherwise the leaves of the rose will turn brown. You should still be able to touch the wax.
If you have very large chunks of wax, you can chop them before melting, then the wax melts a little faster.
If you want to wax several roses, you may have to heat the wax again in between, as it cools down and becomes solid again over time.