How to make a pressed flower picture.

By: Maria Groch on 26/08/2008

When planning to make a pressed flower picture I recommend starting from planning it. Consider which kind of flowers you would like to use in your project. You can use some pressed flowers you have done before or pick some in your garden wait for a while and then create a composition.
Choosing the background is also very important. You have a choice of using different materials, and that will set the mood for the whole picture. I recommend using fabrics like: hessians, cottons or linens in neutral colours as well as great range of coloured and textured papers. Sometimes you can use pieces of wallpaper but have to be careful not to overwhelm the picture with shapes and designs.

It is very useful to design the project before you begin with work. It is useful to establish how shapes and colours will fit together and that can also give you the idea of the background you might choose.

When you ready and have the design, the background and the picture frame to go with your flower arrangements, all you need are: round-ended tweezers (for picking up the delicate flowers), scissors, latex or water-based adhesive plus small paintbrush.

Very important in my opinion is to calculate the centre of the picture as it will help you with the positioning of the flowers. Now you can start to arrange them in a circle following the original design to form the basic shape of the picture. By adding more flowers, keeping the circle shape (some flowers should slightly overlap the first ones) and working from the background towards the foreground you should finish a picture with some final central arrangements.

Once the picture is dry, you can place it carefully inside the frame.
You can have a look on my first project A pressed flower picture or give me some advice on the Nature Crafts forum

It is really great fun and I am looking forward to seeing some of the projects on line.