Flower Pressings & Happy Spring
Today is officially the first day of spring, though there is still plenty of visible snow in my part of Michigan. Despite the cold, I’m feeling hopeful that nicer weather is around the corner, and I plug my ears and shout “LALALALALA” every time someone tries to tell me otherwise. (Don’t judge me. We all have different ways of dealing with this evil, never-ending winter, and this is one of mine.)
Apparently, today is also National Happiness day. Things that made me happy today? Discovering a new bakery, relaxing with my kitties, and working on some art journaling in my craft room (my craft room in itself makes me happy!). One new thing I’ve been trying out to add to some art journaling pages has been making pressed flowers.
Years ago my parents gave me a Microfleur Flower Press for Christmas, and I went searching for it last week to preserve some flowers that were special to me. Using the Microfleur is super easy: you just put flowers in between the cotton liners, wool pads and vented platens, put clips in place to hold everything together, and then microwave the flowers in short bursts until dry.
In the first picture, I laid out some flowers, and in this picture you can see that I clipped the Microfleur shut.
After the first burst of heat from the microwave, I checked to see how the flowers looked so far. One nice thing about the stage after the first bit of heat is that the flowers are usually still a little damp so you can do some rearranging before subsequent heating.
Above you can see how the flowers turned out.
I did three sets of flowers from the bouquet I received, and thought they all turned out rather pretty.
I used glue dots and Mod Podge to attach them to my art journaling pages a few days later, which worked pretty well (though, I’ll be honest, the flowers are so fragile that attaching them was a little stressful!). Have you ever tried drying flowers? What method did you use to preserve them, and if you attached them to something, what was your approach?
Hope you’re having a pleasant first day of spring, and that there are loads of things bringing you happiness today!