Summer is such a lovely visual time of year, full of brightly colored blooms and flowers, sadly they don’t stay around for long and before we know it those vivid colors will be lost for another year.
However, there is a way to preserve those beautiful flowers and pressing flowers is a great hobby that your children can enjoy. Simply go to your garden (or a willing grandparent’s or friend’s) and pick some pretty flowers and foliage.
When you get home, snip the stems if they are long and sort our your flowers and leaves into interesting patterns and color schemes and arrange on blotting paper or some plain white paper with another sheet on top of your final design.
You can buy expensive wooden presses but as a beginner you’ll find that a large heavy book or a catalogue or telephone directory will work just fine. Simply carefully place the flower arrangement in the middle of the book and then pile a few more heavy books or directorys on top.
Alternatively you can press individual flowers and leaves inbetween pages of the books and then use the flowers to create a picture later.
Place the pile of books somewhere warmish and dry, attics or basements are good places if they don’t suffer from damp, otherwise a cupboard where they won’t be disturbed will be fine.
Leave the flowers for a two or three weeks and then you’ll find that the flowers have dried with all their colors still beautifully vivid.
Use the flowers and leaves to create pictures which can be framed in simple clip-frames (make sure to hang out of direct sunlight), or use them to make lovely cards to give to friends and relatives.
For other great nature-based projects that you can do with your children over the summer vacations have a look at our website.
