Sweetwater Style: Preserving Cattails for Indoor Decor!

This post involves blood and gore!

What?

This is supposed to be about preserving cattails.

How could that involve blood and gore?

It all started when I asked Mr. S to come along to the countryside to collect some cattails.

We do this every couple of years.

It is a simple matter of climbing down the embankment and cutting the cattails before they get to "ripe" and start to puff.

Well.....

it would be simple enough.....

If the rock retaining wall HADN'T crumbled when Mr. S stepped down....

But Mr. S is tough and stoic!!!!

So even though he fell and twisted his thumb....we kept at it!

Then....we got back in the truck and found even more cattails along the road....

Then many cattails in hand...back home we went.

When John got out of the truck...he asked me what I thought we had walked in to make his pants get all red!!!!!

YIKES! He was covered in GORE!

Luckily, when we got to the source of the bleeding...it wasn't a big deal!

The bleeding stopped in 5 minutes and the little wound was covered with a regular bandage.

BUT....I his boot was filled with blood...

There was a puddle on the floormat in the truck.

Ick...Ick....Ick..

Now on to preserving those cattails.....

I originally posted about this here...PRESERVING CATTAILS TUTORIAL

In order to make the cattails last, you need a very strong "GLUE".

I have tried a couple of methods.

Hairspray: it isn't strong enough...and who has it anyway.

ModgePodge: Works....but has a funny texture because of the way it sits on the surface.

Polyurethane is my go to solution for strong long lasting cattails.

The poly absorbs into the cattail and keeps in all that fluff that is just waiting to burst out,

I used a disposable brush and put on a very thick coat.

The can of poly that was on the shelf was pretty old...so I feel like this was a great use of the "dregs" in the can.