wild for life

flower pressing

Pressing flowers is a traditional and easy way to preserve blooms and foliage.  It's an effective way to preserve a floral memento from a loved one and creates delicate, natural craft materials.

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Try sticking your dried flowers and foliage onto gift tags, wrapping paper and cards to personalise your gifts.  Or perhaps try attaching them to a memory box or try arranging them into a picture for your home. The options are endless  Look out for our wild ideas on Instagram and Facebook using pressed flowers for easter and mother's day projects.

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Here's how to get started...

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instructions

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1. Collect up a range of flowers of different shapes and sizes. Also collect foliage - fern leaves work really well in arrangements.

2. At home, pat dry your blooms and sort your flowers and leaves. Take larger flowers and snip the stems off to the base of the flower. For smaller, more delicate flowers yo can snip some individual heads and leave some as a sprig including foliage.

3. Take some paper towels and arrange your flowers and foliage on the sheets - take time to place them as you would like them to appear dried. With large flower heads, ensure that the petals are spread out and as flat as they can be.

4. Place another piece of paper towel on top and then insert into the pages of a heavy book or place flat underneath something heavy.

5. Leave for 1-2 weeks or as long as they take to dry out. Larger blooms may take longer to dry out than smaller ones. Then craft away!

6. Need your pressed flowers in a rush? Then why not try microwaving them! Follow stages one to 3 but instead of placing them in a heavy book, simply put the flowers into the microwave between two sheets of tissue paper and place a heavy microwave dish on top and zap the flowers on a low heat for 1-4 minutes, stopping every minute to check to see if the flowers are dry. Colourful flowers and leaves work best with this method rather than white flowers which can brown. Experiment and see what works best for you.