Lake Austin
If you have ever wanted to share the beauty of your gardens with friends and family, or simply create a memento of each year’s passing beauty in your garden or neighborhood, try these simple techniques for pressing your garden ’s bounty.

Preserving the blooms by pressing them is really easy. Flower presses are simple to create by using wood and screws with blotter paper. However, I have found a trouble free way to press flowers easily and cheaply - use your old phone books! I pick flowers that are fresh and beautiful and very dry and place them in the phone book. Leave twenty to thirty pages between the next page and place more flowers. Keep the flowers from touching each other and make sure there is no dew or moisture on them. Any excess dampness will fade the color of the blooms. You can easily put ten to twelve layers of flowers in a book, then carefully close the book and put something heavy on it to press the moisture from the flowers. Stack books, hand weights, rocks or anything heavy on top to press the book and press the moisture out of the flowers. Leave the flowers in the book for seven to ten days and then check to see if they are dry. They should then be ready to use for cards, bookmarks, decorating plates, candles, stationary and countless other crafts.

Keep the flowers stored in the phone books (make sure to use last year’s phone book or flowers will come flying out as you search for listings). Some of my favorite flowers for pressing are pansies, violas, snapdragons, bluebonnets, larkspur, Indian paintbrush and verbenas. Herb flowers and foliage are wonderful too. Even many weed species like henbit, chickweed, shepherd’s purse and dandelions look beautiful when pressed.

Glue the pressed flowers to cardstock and then use decoupage glue to cover the finished work or have your artwork laminated at a craft or office supply store. Sunlight will fade the flowers, so hang your finished artwork out of direct sunlight.

This is a great craft for all ages and a wonderful to learn more about the flowers that you grow. If you keep a garden journal, pressing flowers and adding them to your journal may remind you of successful color combinations or plant combination to try next season.