How to Make Art out of Pressed Flowers
Step 1: Go to your garden on a sunny day around the early afternoon, after the dew has evaporated but before the blooms begin to close or the stems to droop. Choose the flowers you’d like to press, and snip them at the base. The flatter the blooms, the better. (Think pansies and violets, not peonies or zinnias.)
Step 2: Find and dust off your old phone book. Then trim your flowers’ stems, spread your blossoms flat between the pages, and close the book. (If you don’t have a phone book, lay your blossoms between two coffee filters and tuck into an encyclopedia, dictionary, or one of your Norton anthologies that you haven’t opened since college.)
Step 3: Place more books (or any other heavy object) on top of your newly recruited flower press and let it be for one to two weeks.
Step 4: Check on your flowers. If they’re papery and dry, they’re finished. Handle them with care (and tweezers). They’re oh-so-delicate.
Step 5: Using just a touch of glue, mount your blossoms on a piece of paper or matte. Place in a frame and hang on your wall.
More tips
- You can also glue your flowers to plain cards, write sweet notes on the back, tuck in an envelope, and send to a friend.
- Press pretty leaves and, for luck, four-leaf clovers, too!