Hello Crafters!

I can’t get enough of wildflowers! In a desperate attempt to preserve summer I will press as many flowers as I can get my hands on. Every time I’m out walking my dog I end up with a handful of new wildflowers to press for a future project. (I haven’t decided on the project yet but when I figure it out there will be more than enough flowers to do it!)

At first I just stuck them inside my heaviest books and hoped for the best but that didn’t work out too well. Most of the time I ended up with a few too many moldy book pages…

Clearly you need to remove some of the moisture from your flowers to create perfect end results. This post will show you five of my best tips to get perfectly pressed flowers every time, so let’s get to it!

Press your flowers ASAP

My first tip is an easy one: press your flowers as soon as you get them home! Once the flowers have wilted in your sweaty grasp they won’t look nearly as beautiful as they could and you are trying to preserve their natural beauty right?

If it took you longer to get home than you thought don’t give up on your wilted blooms just put them in a bit of water to spruce them up but be sure to dry them off with paper towel before pressing them because you don’t want any excess water messing up the pressing process.

Use the right paper:

Regular white paper might do the trick with the drier, easier to press flowers like pansies but if you have something a little juicier I can guarantee it will rot inside of a book. To draw out that extra moisture put the flowers in tissue paper (like the kind you put in gift bags) then put regular white paper on top of that and then put your flowers in the book.

Newspaper works just as well but I wouldn’t recommend using it for lighter coloured flowers because the newsprint might mark the petals.

The flower sandwich should look like this:

white paper / tissue paper / flowers / tissue paper / white paper

After a couple of days take the flowers out of the tissue paper and replace the white paper with two sheets of fresh white paper and stick back in the book for a few more days to finish flattening.

Use your iron ?!?

I know this sounds crazy but it is very effective to use your iron to speed along the pressing process. Put your flowers between two sheets of regular paper and with your iron *on the lowest driest setting* gently press the iron on top of the paper and hold for about ten seconds. Don’t move the iron around just hold it in position, once the flowers are ironed simply place them in a book like you would have if you didn’t get this awesome tip. The ironing helps start the flattening process and also dries out the flowers so that they won’t get moldy in your book.

Position your flowers

Struggling to make your flowers stay flat? Put your flowers face down on the paper and gently press them flat with your hands before folding the paper over. If you place them face down you have less chance of folding over the petals by accident when you put the paper on top.

Seal your flowers

After you press your flowers you will be pretty impressed with your work. You want them to stay vibrant and beautiful for all of eternity. To make sure they don’t lose their colour you should seal your flowers. There are a few different things you could use as a sealant.

The most common sealer would be Mod Podge, but I would suggest watering it down to more of a glaze so you don’t damage the flowers when brushing it on. You could also water down regular school glue for a similar effect. One craft supply that I always have on hand is matte clear spray paint which would work great as well.

Storing your perfectly pressed flowers

The best way I’ve found to store pressed flowers is between paper towel because it keeps any moisture out. Then just slide the paper towel into a clear page protector to keep your beautiful flowers safe!

Now that you have perfectly pressed flowers what will you make with them?

Some awesome projects that I’ve seen are sun-catchers, coasters, gift tags, artwork, and clay magnets, just to name a few!

I would love to hear your project ideas in the comments below!

Happy Crafting!