Pressed Flowers

Pressed flowers make lovely cards, pictures, pretty boxes, and much more. Here's instructions on how to press those lovely blooms.

• Pick flowers, grasses, and ferns on a dry afternoon, avoiding flowers with complex petals and thick stems.
• Arrange your finds between sheets of smooth blotting paper and weight them down with heavy books or bricks.
• Leave undisturbed in a warm, dry place for three to four weeks.
• Using tweezers, move the dried flowers to a card or piece of paper, and affix them carefully with diluted white glue.
• You may want to spray the finished arrangement with a clear acrylic spray or, if you put the flowers on a box, use clear varnish.

Make your own flower press using two pieces of wood with holes drilled in each corner. Assemble the press by placing flowers and blotting paper between the boards, then slide a bolt up through each corner. Use wing nuts with washers to tighten the two boards together.

Have you pressed flowers? We'd love to hear from you. Just post your comment below!