Art

How to Press Flowers: Best Methods for Beginners in 2024

by: Kristy Bowen

Last Updated on Aug 15th 2024

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Learning how to press flowers can be one of the best lessons to learn if you are a crafter or garden enthusiast. Pressed flower arts and crafts can be a fun and beautiful way to use flowers and other plants long after their natural lifecycle.

This is particularly great for saving keepsake and memento flowers like bouquets, corsages and other kinds of special occasion flowers or just preserving your favorites from your garden.

What is the best way to press flowers? How do you press flowers and keep their color? How do you preserve fresh flowers permanently? There are several methods and considerations for getting the best results, with many time-honored ways of pressing and preserving flowers in all their glory.

From the long and patient drying out, to faster methods with quick results, you can use your flowers for all sorts of cool craft and art projects. We’ve rounded up a few of our favorites below as well as tips for getting the best results with your flowers.

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Learn How to Press Flowers at Home

Learning how to press flowers and arrange them artfully can be a great way to expand creativity, save precious mementos and bring nature into your life and artmaking process in dynamic ways.

Numerous tutorials and blogs on how to press flowers on the internet exist to help you get started or pinpoint the best tips on certain varieties of flowers and plants.

If you are wondering how to press flowers without turning them brown or how to press flowers with a book, many of these great lessons will help. Flower arranging and making arrangements can help you create beautiful bouquets perfect for preserving in two-dimensional form.

Many venues offer in-person or virtual flower arranging classes that help you learn how to create perfect bouquets by exploring important concepts like using various heights and lengths, proportions, scale and color to create arrangements that look professionally done.

learn to how to press flowers at home with virtual flower arranging classes — *via Canva*

What to Do With Pressed Flowers

Keepsakes and Mementos

A great way to remember special celebrations and occasions is to carefully preserve and display the flowers from weddings, birthdays, anniversaries and more.

You can do this with individual blooms or in preserved framed bouquets, which make an amazing keepsake that not only recalls past moments and events but allows you to hold on to a bit of history that can be displayed later.

Handmade Cards & Notes

One of the best reasons for learning how to press flowers is to make handmade paper goods, including greeting cards, notecards, place cards, bookmarks and invitations.

Pressed flowers can be used in a variety of techniques, including DIY paper making, collage, printmaking and other paper and book artistry to create special and singular objects that far outshine store-bought ones.

Art Journaling

Art journaling is a great way to embrace daily creativity, create a record of the past and preserve objects that are special or significant. It is also another great thing to do with pressed flowers.

You can learn how to press flowers for journaling purposes, which usually involves using flowers and garden greenery as an accent for other types of art like collage and watercolor painting.

A fun college or art journal idea is using bits of pressed flowers to create other types of images like animals and landscapes. You can also use pressed flowers as inspiration for flower painting ideas.

making an art journal with pressed flowers — *via Canva*

Jewelry

Carefully pressed blooms and plants make gorgeous jewelry pieces. They can be pressed between glass to make earrings or pendants or be encased in resin to create small works of art you can wear. Pressed flowers can also be rolled into beads to make bracelets, necklaces and more.

Herbarium

An herbarium is often created as an educational or documentation tool. It includes pressed flower or plant specimens along with diagrams, descriptions and planting information on how to grow different plants.

Herbariums make a great tool for gardeners or a fun and interactive way to teach children about different regional flora and how to press flowers and other plants.

Framed Flower Art

Framed arrangements of flowers are a beautiful way to decorate your home and a long-time-honored way of creating unique pieces of artwork. Use petals and other flower parts to assemble unique pieces of art to give as gifts or keep for yourself.

pressed flower art in hanging frame — *via Canva*

Paper Lanterns

Learn how to press flowers to make beautiful and festive paper lanterns from simple materials like handmade paper, Mod Podge and a simple frame. You can add twinkle lights or LED bulbs inside that will light up your next party or outdoor space.

Decoupage

The art of decoupage is a great reason to learn how to press flowers. Using Mod podge or another paste, you can add preserved flowers and paper to anything, including tins, boxes, picture frames and other containers. Decoupaged objects also make a great DIY gift ideas.

Candles

You can make simple melt-and-pour candles or soaps using soap or candle base and dried flowers. During the hardening process simply arrange the flowers along the perimeter of the soap mold or candle mold. Dried flower candles make a fun candle making adventure or DIY home décor.

How to Press Flowers for Framing

Choosing Flowers to Preserve

One of the key steps in learning how to press flowers for framing is choosing the most perfect blooms. This means you want to choose floral varieties that lend themselves to preserving.

Flowers that are flat-faced or single-layered often make the best specimens, while more moisture-rich flowers, like begonias, are more difficult to dry out and press without damage.

You will also want to make sure the blooms you pick are damage-free from moisture, mold and signs of pests. Handling the flowers carefully with gloves or nylon tweezers will keep your fingers from bruising or damaging petals.

Harvesting & Preparing Flowers

The ideal time to harvest flowers for pressing is in the morning after the dew has dried off. Look for flowers in their full bloom at certain times of the day and avoid harvesting on rainy or wet days, since this will make the flowers take much longer to dry out and may contribute to damage or mold growth.

For inside bouquets, the best way to prepare flowers is to leave them in water up until right before pressing.

learn how to press flowers by picking them at the right time of day — *via Canva*

Laying Out Flowers for Pressing

To prepare individual or sheets of flowers, you will need some parchment paper or another kind of paper to lay them out on. You can use coffee filters, tissue, blotting papers or newspapers.

While paper towels can be used to help flowers dry, many advise against using them during the pressing process since many may leave textured design imprints on your finished flowers.

Using a Flower Press

To press your flowers at home you can use a flower press or a book. Many retailers sell ready-made flower presses or you can assemble one with two pieces of board and a couple of screws that will allow you to screw them carefully together with the flowers in between.

Place another sheet of parchment or paper on top of the flowers after you have laid them out in a single layer, making sure they are all of equal thickness.

Thicker and more bulbous flowers may require you to separate them to lay flat. Place them between the boards and allow to dry for 2-4 weeks.

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How to Press Flowers in a Book

If you do not have a flower press, another popular technique when first learning how to press flowers is using a thick book like a dictionary or phone book. Prepare the flowers as above, placing them in a single layer on a sheet and covering them with another sheet of parchment.

Place the flowers between the parchment in the middle of the book, then use other books or weighted objects like bricks to press the flowers flat. Leave in place for 2-4 weeks until the flowers are completely dry and flat.

open book with pressed flowers in the middle — *via Canva*

How to Press Flowers Quickly

How to Press Flowers in the Microwave

While pressing flowers with a book or flower press can take several weeks to dry, there are many ways to press them using faster methods, though sometimes these do not result in vibrant colors and or can lead to damage or scorching of the flowers.

A popular way to press flowers quickly is to use a microwave, which will successfully heat and dry the flowers within a few minutes. You can purchase this flower press designed specifically for use in the microwave.

Line a layer of flowers on the fabric liner. Microwave in short bursts until the flowers are fully dry, pausing to let them cool down between bursts of heat.

Start by running the microwave for 25 seconds, followed by additional 10-second intervals. If you have a microwave-safe book (ie, no metal) you can also combine these two approaches into one for faster results.

The results of microwaving the flowers may make them browner than they started, so you may want to avoid this technique if you want vibrant-colored pressed flowers.

learn how to press flowers quickly in the microwave with a flower pressing kit — *via Walmart*

How to Press Flowers With an Iron

While this approach to drying and pressing flowers works very fast, it is also one of the most wrought with possible damage to the flowers themselves since ironing can sometimes damage or scorch the flowers since the heat is so high.

Be careful to work slowly and deliberately to get the best results. This technique can take anywhere from 5-7 minutes.

Prepare the flowers between layers of parchment paper as with the above instruction, then use an iron in 15-30-second intervals to apply heat to each flower, pressing them flat.

Whether you are learning how to press flowers from your wedding or prom or just looking for cool accents to decorate things like candles, art journals or other craft projects, dried and pressed flowers can be a beautiful addition to your home and life. Even better, you can create distinctive botanical gifts for everyone on your list.

For even more fun arts and crafts ideas, check out other experiences happening on Classpop!