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“How do you press flowers?”

Step 1: Pick flowers

Step 2: Press flowers

Step 3: Sit

“What do you use to press?”

“How long do you wait?”

  • It depends, experiment.

“What do you do while you wait?”

  • Grow something

  • Grow yourself

Flower Pressing Tips

Wax paper, parchment paper, book paper.
Every flower is unique, experiment.

Press flowers dry.
Wait to pick and press after morning dew or rain evaporates.

Flowers with a massive base (e.g., sunflowers):
Cut a hole into book pages, to create a little nest for the base allowing petals a sufficient press.

Ge kind to and forgiving of your pressed flowers.
Some will need more attention and patience to remove once pressed.

Slowly peeling back paper away from the flowers will help gently unstick it. Sometimes I very gently encourage it with a toothpick. Often petals disconnect, flowers fall apart, what looked beautifully pressed when I opened the book, crumbled. It’s part of the craft and an opportunity to practice patience and sit with disappointment, or consider that what you determined a failure is, in fact, something quite beautiful.

Not all flowers press well.
Color may not be retained. Flowers may shatter. Expectations and pressing flowers do not go hand-in-hand. Get creative when the results are not what you had hoped for. I discovered purple press glitter after accumulating so many “failed” pressing attempts.

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How To Make A Flower Press

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What you need:

  1. two pieces of wood (at least one side of each must be flat)

  2. two flat-head machine screws

  3. two matching wingnuts

  4. four matching washers

  5. drill

Steps:

  1. line up wood so flat sides face in

  2. drill holes (be sure to leave enough room in between for the size paper you wish to use)

  3. fill with paper and flowers! tighten with screws, washers, and wingnuts

Purple Presser hack:

  • Use wood cutting boards. The very talented Sarah stamps the plates used on purple pressers.

Crafting With Pressed Flowers

Experiment

One hard lesson learned/worth sharing:

When working with casting resin,
cover your hair.
If you do not, and discover resin in your hair, and google:
“how to remove resin from your hair,”
you will find only advice to
not to get resin in your hair.

Cover your hair,
do not get casting resin in your hair.

pressed flowers cast in resin, which you do not want to get in your hair✂️

pressed flowers cast in resin, that you do not want to get in your hair✂️