My girls love collecting wildflowers from our yard and garden. Instead of just letting them wilt and die after picking them, we usually press them and save them to use for crafts later. One of my favorite ways to use them is for making pressed flower bookmarks.
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Pressed Flower Bookmarks
For this activity you will need:
-Fresh flowers or leaves
-A flower press or a heavy book for pressing flowers and leaves in
-Waxed paper
-Clear contact paper or a laminator sheet
-A permanent marker
-Scissors
-A hole punch
-Plastic cord or yarn
-Beads
The first step is to go out and collect some flowers to press. The best flowers for pressing are flowers that lie flat and only have a layer or two of petals. Flowers like poppies, daisies, violets, pansies, and cosmos tend to work really well. If you want to press thicker flowers or flowers with many petal layers like roses, peonies, cone flowers, zinnias, or dandelions, it's best to pull them apart and press the individual petals rather than the whole flower. If it's not flower season, leaves and some types of wild grasses work well too.
After your done collecting, place your flowers and leaves between two sheets of waxed paper and then stick them in your flower press or inside the center of a heavy book. Set it aside for about a week so your flowers and leaves have time to dry and flatten.
When your flowers and leaves are completely dry, remove them from the press or book. It's okay if some of the flowers fall apart, pressed flower petals will look lovely too.
If you're using contact paper, draw two matching bookmark sized rectangles on the back of the contact paper. I usually trace another bookmark so that I get nice regular rectangles. If you don't have a bookmark to trace, use a ruler. Cut out the rectangles. Next, peel the paper from the back of one of the rectangles and set it on your work surface, sticky side up. Arrange several flowers or leaves onto the sticky side of the contact paper.
Peel the paper from the back of the second rectangle. Carefully line it up over the one with your flowers placed on it, and place it on top of it, sticky side down. Apply pressure with your fingers, starting in the center and working towards the edges to smooth out any air bubbles.
If you're using a laminator sheet instead of contact paper, use a permanent marker to trace a bookmark sized rectangle onto a laminator sheet (or several rectangles if you are making more than one bookmark). Flip the laminator sheet over so that the side you traced the rectangle on is on the bottom, touching your work surface.
Open the sheet and place several flowers or leaves inside the rectangle or rectangles that you traced. Close the sheet and then send it through your laminator. After it's cool, cut out your bookmarks by cutting along the rectangles you drew.
If you want to add some cord and beads to your bookmarks. Punch a hole near the top, thread about 12 inches of plastic cord or yarn through the hole and tie it into place. Add a few beads to each side of the cord and tie a knot on each end of the cord to keep them from sliding off.
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| If your feeling really creative try arranging your pressed nature pieces to make pictures like fairies, butterflies, mandalas, people, or animals! |
If you enjoyed this post check out:
-Nature Print Salt Dough Ornaments
-Autumn Leaf Paper Lantern Craft
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