Have you ever avoided buying vintage silk flowers because they looked like this. Well most good quality wired silk flowers can be revived. Here is a “Before and After” for these white flowers and their leaves.
When I got these they were a tangled and a misshaped mess. But the wires were good (not rusted) and still attached down the leaves. The biggest issue was that most of the flowers were folded in half an many of the petals were also folded back on themselves.
The first step was to untangle everything and straighten the wires.
I unbundled the stems and took everything apart. There are two of three different flowers and three each of two different leaves.
By looking at these pictures you can see the biggest issue; what is suppose to be an open flower with a center is folded in half so you can’t even see the center.
I knew I had to do more than just flatten them out I needed to re-starch them.
But because silk flowers are molded in a hot press you don’t want to add too much liquid starch because that will take out those ridges.
I added a teaspoon of corn starch to about 1/3 of a cup of water and brought it to a boil when it cooled it make a thick starch paste. With very little on my brush I painted the base of the petals and any creases.
I used a blow drier to dry and stiffen the petals. These are the two flowers with the single center and a double set of petals.
These two flowers have many sets of petals but were glued in the centers so they could not be opened. But re-starching those petals that folded back on themselves or seemed to be going the wrong way made them look much better.
These two flowers also had two layers of petals but had a set of stamen and an ovary in the center and needed the same work as the first set.
The leaves needed some starch because they were folding back on themselves.
Same thing with the little triple leaves.
I decided to bundle one leaf with one flower when putting it back together.
I twisted the stem of a leaf around the stem each flower.
Then using florist tape I taped each leaf/flower to the main stem wire. I folded the extra stem length under.
Now it really fills up the entire side of the hat brim. What a difference well worth the effort.
One important thing is not to get your starch too thin and not to use too much. For a few reasons; first so you do not loose any of the stamped ridges, second so you don’t cause the fabric to ravel while you are brushing and lastly you don’t want your petals to stick together.