Vent: Spent $200 on a 'floral preservation' course that was completely useless

I signed up for this online course last month that promised to teach me how to preserve flowers using silica gel and resin. It cost me $200 and I got 3 videos that were basically just someone talking over their garage bench. No real tips on how to keep the color from fading or how to avoid bubbles in the resin. I lost the money plus about 8 hours of my time watching that junk. Has anyone actually found a decent resource for flower preservation that doesn't feel like a scam?

3 comments

3 Comments

michael_williams1d ago

Four years ago I found a lady on Etsy who sells PDF guides for $12 and her method uses microwave silica gel instead of the traditional kind. You put the flower in a dish, cover it with the gel, and microwave it in 30 second bursts. The color holds way better because the process is so fast and the flowers don't have time to oxidize and turn brown. That cheap guide taught me more than any of the $200 courses I've seen.

blair9901d ago

Hold up, I'm gonna disagree hard here. $200 for a course that taught you the basics isn't a scam, it's just that you didn't do your homework before buying. Flower preservation is one of those things where you either get lucky with cheap methods or you pay for someone who actually knows what they're doing. I took a $300 class and the guy showed us exactly how to use a heat gun, proper silica gel brands that don't cause bubbles, and even gave us a PDF with exact temp and timing charts for different flower types. Your course probably had those tips too if you watched it slower or asked questions in the comments. The Etsy guide for $12 sounds like a recipe for moldy flowers and wasted resin if you don't know what you're doing.

kim_davis1d ago

Gently though, silica gel actually works fine for color if you bury the flowers completely and check them after 3 days instead of rushing it. Resin bubbles just need a lighter or heat gun, which most real tutorials mention but crap courses skip lol.