While fresh flowers are a temporary joy, you can preserve them for many years to come by applying the age-old craft of flower pressing. After pressing and drying flowers between the pages of a book, you can turn them into arts and gifts with simple craft supplies. Besides using pressed flowers in craft projects, you can also transform them into decorative accents, jewelry and works of natural art.
Stationery
A quintessential pressed flower craft that goes well with handmade paper, you can dress up plain stationery with dried blooms. Affix the dried flowers to handmade pulp paper or a soft fibrous paper (like cotton paper or recycled cloth paper) using mucilage, library paste or decoupage glue. Position the flowers on areas where they won't interfere with writing on the paper such as the corners and edges.
Resin Casting
Cast dried flowers in two-part casting resin (available in liquid form in craft and hobby stores) to create sturdy works of art. Buy silicone molds from craft and hobby stores and fill them resin, then lay the flowers on the top of the poured resin so that they'll form the bottom of the mold. Top with decorative paper for an opaque background. Use this method to create large decorative items like paper weights or small items like jewelry pendants.
Bookmarks
To make pressed flower bookmarks, apply the same techniques for affixing pressed flowers onto stationery (though you can cover the entire bookmark with flowers). After attaching the flowers, coat them with sheets of home laminating plastic (available in craft, stationary and scrap booking stores), then punch a hole at the top. You can thread a ribbon or a short string of beads to serve as a place marker.
Wall Hangings
If you press flowers as a way to gather especially beautiful or unique specimens, preserve and display your collection properly by creating a wall hanging. For this craft, attach flowers to paper as you would for bookmarks or stationery, but use larger sheets of paper, then frame it. When gluing your flowers in place, you can either make a scientific display of flower blossoms labeled in neat rows or take an artistic approach and combine real flowers with ink or paint to create a scenic picture.
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