Here's How To Press Your Own Flowers Using A Flower Press

It's another Tutorial Tuesday here on the blog and this week I am going to show you how to press flowers using that DIY Flower Press you hopefully all made last week. If you didn't, head on over to that page so that you can gather the supplies and make it before coming back here and reading how to use it.

For those of you that already made it or already have one, let's get to work.

You will need the following supplies:

• Flower Press
• Cardboard*
• Fresh Picked Flowers**
• Wax paper, Tissue Paper or Newspaper***
• Pen
• Sticky Notes

*The cardboard should be the same dimensions as the wood. If the wood you are using is a soft wood, like plywood, it will eventually bend and the weight will not be distributed evenly, which is essential for pressing flowers.

**Always make sure the flowers are dry and clean. Do not pick flowers with any water or morning dew on them and clean off any dirty parts with a small toothbrush or paintbrush.

***Be aware that when using newspaper to press your flowers the ink may come off, especially on white or light colored flowers. It might be a cool effect but it would really be a bummer if it didn't look good and you ruined one of your flowers!

Enough jibber jabber though, onto how to actually use this thing!

• There should be at least two pieces of cardboard and two pieces of wood in your press. Unscrew the lag screws to either remove or lift up the top layer of wood and cardboard.

• Place a sheet of wax paper, tissue paper, paper towels (patternless) or newspaper (same rules apply – DO NOT use newspaper with light colored flowers UNLESS you want the ink to transfer and decorate the flowers).

Arrange the flowers on the wax paper. They can be face down or sideways but make sure to avoid layering any of the flower parts. Otherwise when they dry they will stick together.

See how on the right those two roses overlap? THAT'S A NO-NO. Time to rearrange the flowers.

• Place an additional piece of wax paper over the flowers.

Gently, place a piece of cardboard over the flowers sandwiched between the two sheets of wax paper. Essentially you are making a sandwich where the wood is the bread, the cardboard mayonnaise (if you will), the paper is the cheese and the flowers the meat.

Flower sandwich anyone?

• Once the cardboard is in place you can add another sheet of paper and flowers, another sheet of paper and then place another piece of cardboard on top and repeat until all your plant matter is between paper and cardboard. (See Illustration in DIY Flower Press.) 

*SQUISH* Tightening the lag screws can take a while and be tiresome.

• Once you have everything layered either slide down wooden top or place it on top and tighten the lag screws until the wood is weighing on the cardboard and you can no longer tighten the screws. I would twist them in diagonal corners for even weight distribution.

• Now for the hard part – waiting until they are dry! Leave the flowers in the press to dry. (4 - 6 weeks depending on the size of the flower. Thicker flowers take longer to dry). I would use a post-it note, write on the non-sticky side the flower & date pressed so you know what you’ve pressed and when you pressed it.

• When it's time to remove the flowers, unscrew the lag screws, lift up the cardboard to the layer you want to remove and slide out the paper. Gently, slip the flowers out of the wax paper. They should be dry and completely flat. If you are going to take them out permanently, remove any sticky notes or marks that pertain to those flowers.

VIOLA! You have beautifully pressed flowers and now they aren't taking up your reading books. If you don't have the money to make the flower press but still need to know how to press flowers, I've got you covered. Head on over to my tutorial on how to press flowers with books (or other heavy objects) and get pressing!

As always, leave a comment if you have any questions or want to share your creations. I'd definitely love to see those on a blog post or something. Remember next week I will be sharing with you how to glue these pressed flowers onto your spell pages. I will also be sharing a few alternative ways to add these to your Book of Shadows without gluing them in! So watch this blog.