Pressing Flowers for Craft Projects and Cards

Why Press Flowers?

There is something quietly satisfying about opening a book weeks later and finding a pansy you tucked between the pages in July, still holding its colour. Pressing flowers is one of the oldest nature crafts there is, and it costs almost nothing. It also happens to produce some of the loveliest handmade cards, bookmarks and framed pictures you can give away.

The trick is to start before the blooms are past their best. Pick on a dry morning, once the dew has lifted but before the midday sun has wilted everything. Take a small box, an envelope or a trug rather than a plastic bag — petals bruise quickly when they are crammed together, and condensation ruins the colour. Snip stems fairly short and get your flowers onto paper within a few hours of picking, while they are still fresh and flat.

Choosing the Right Blooms

Not every flower presses well. The best candidates are thin, single-layered and naturally flat. Thick, fleshy petals (think most roses and lilies) tend to go brown and mouldy rather than drying.

• Pansies, violas and heartsease: the classic pressed flower, and forgiving for beginners
• Cornflowers, cosmos and nigella: delicate, papery and beautifully coloured
• Sweet peas, delphinium florets and lavender: wonderful for slim, elegant arrangements
• Ferns, ivy leaves and nasturtium leaves: brilliant for adding greenery and structure
• Hydrangea heads and forget-me-nots: lovely for filling small gaps

Break larger flowers into individual petals and press them separately — you can always reassemble them on your card later, which gives you far more control over the finished design.

Pressing Methods That Work

The traditional approach is still the best. Place your flower face down on a sheet of blotting paper or kitchen roll, cover with another sheet, then sandwich this between two pieces of card and weight it down. A proper wooden flower press is ideal, but a heavy book with more books stacked on top works perfectly well. Leave everything somewhere dry and out of direct sunlight for two to four weeks.

If you need results faster, try the iron or microwave method:

• Iron method: lay the flowers between two sheets of kitchen roll, place on a hard surface and press with a cool-to-warm iron (no steam) for ten seconds at a time until dry
• Microwave method: sandwich between blotting paper and two ceramic tiles, then microwave in 30-second bursts, checking between each one. Stop the moment the petals feel papery
• Silica gel: best for slightly chunkier flowers you want to keep a little three-dimensional. Bury the bloom in the gel for two to five days

Whichever route you take, change the blotting paper after the first day or two. Damp paper is the main cause of brown, mouldy specimens.

Getting Neat, Long-Lasting Results

Always use acid-free paper or card for the final layer, as ordinary newspaper and cheap copier paper will yellow your flowers over time. Lay each bloom face down, with plenty of space between them — petals that touch will stick together and tear when you try to separate them.

Once dry, handle pressed flowers with tweezers rather than fingers. Your natural oils will dull the colours and can encourage mould. Store finished specimens flat in glassine envelopes or between sheets of acid-free paper, kept in a cool, dark, dry box. A damp kitchen windowsill is the worst possible place for them.

Craft Projects: Cards, Bookmarks and Framed Art

Greetings cards. Use a smooth card blank of around 250–300gsm. Plan your design on a separate piece of watercolour paper first, arranging the flowers in odd numbers and slightly overlapping them, then glue them down with diluted PVA (roughly one part glue to one part water) applied with a fine brush or cocktail stick. Leave a clear space for your handwritten message, and edge the panel with a thin strip of washi tape or a hand-drawn line.

Bookmarks. Cut a strip of card about 5cm by 15cm, press a single stem or a small cluster in place, then cover both sides with clear adhesive film or have it laminated. Punch a hole at the top, thread through a length of ribbon, and you have a gift that will last for years.

Framed art. Float your arrangement on cream or ivory mount board, using a tiny dab of glue at the thickest point of each flower rather than across the whole petal. Frame without the glass pressing directly onto the flowers — ask for a small spacer or a deep box frame — and choose UV-filtering glass if the picture will hang anywhere bright. Keep finished pieces out of direct sunlight; even well-pressed flowers will fade over time, though they will fade far more slowly if you protect them.

Storing and Displaying Your Pressed Flowers

Keep a small stash of pressed blooms in envelopes labelled with the flower name and date. It turns an idle afternoon in July into a resource you can dip into in December, when a homemade card means far more than anything shop-bought. Press more than you think you need — some will always disappoint — and enjoy the small ritual of it. Few hobbies reward you so handsomely for so little outlay.