DIY Dried Artichokes

Artichokes are excellent eye candy.    Fresh artichokes are {relatively} cheap {I got mine for about $1.75/each}.  

However, fresh artichokes do not last very long if you are planning on using them for decor.    Solution: drying artichokes is easy & cheap. My favorite combination. The only hard part about it is waiting on them to dry out. Artichokes vary in size and consequently drying time, but mine took a good 2 weeks. I probably should have let some of the bigger ones dry longer, but I was impatient. Here is the result.   These bad boys are going in a wooden bowl on my sofa table {which I am still planning on showing you...once I get my act together}.   For the life of me, I can't seem to find the article I referenced to dry my artichokes, otherwise I would direct you to that article. I didn't really follow the directions anyway.   Materials needed: artichoke{s} string/twine pins {optional} arosol hairspray   There is more than one way to skin a cat or dry an artichoke, but the important things to keep in mind is that the artichoke needs to be hung upside down without resting on anything in a well-ventilated room.   You can tie string around the stem of the artichoke and hang it, but you would just need to check up on it periodically because the stem will shrink during the drying process and might come loose. Or you can do what I did: stick pins in the sides of the stem and hang it from the pins. Does that make sense? Of course I didn't take a picture.   How do you know if it's completely dried out? You will notice that the artichoke will get much lighter as the moisture leaves. The stem will get kind of shrivled looking & it will start looking...well, dry.   I finished by spraying each artichoke with arosol hair spray to give them a protective coat.
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