Pressed Flower Art Tips Tools and Techniques for Learning the Craft
Once you've mastered this simple technique, y'all'll discover many uses for the flowers and leaves you press.
Why not embark on a craft project and decorate special cards for family unit and friends, create beautiful fine art, or make a collection of herbarium sheets recording the plants growing in your garden?
Yous will need:
- books
- newspaper
- menu
- PVA gum
- a pen
What to practice:
1. In a spot where you have permission to choice flowers, carefully selection a department from a plant. Try not to damage other flowers or take too many.
two. Open a book and line it with newspaper. Place your flowers (as flat equally you can) on the page.
Identify the flowers you want to press on newspaper between the pages of a book
iii. Carefully shut the book and weight it downwards - additional heavy books work well as weights.
4. Store this pile in a warm, dry place and check on your blossom specimens daily.
5. Once your flowers are dry out, carefully remove them.
six. You can then create your own flower collection or make some beautiful fine art. Utilise glue to mount the pressed flowers on card.
seven. If you are creating a collection or would like to record details nigh your flowers, add a characterization. The primal information to note on a herbarium sheet is when and where it was collected, past whom and - if y'all know - what the flower is.
Primal things to consider when pressing flowers
Not all plants are piece of cake to press. Some, such as bluebells, take a long time to lose moisture and tend to become mouldy. Bulkier plants are also more hard to press well (see our pinnacle tips below).
Museum botanist Fred Rumsey, who looks afterward the Historical Collections says, 'You desire to ensure that yous continue an even weight across the whole plant specimen that yous're pressing. Whatever function of the institute left in free air rather than in contact with the paper volition shrivel up.'
Be sensitive to nature
Fred is one of the authors of the BSBI Code of Conduct for picking, collecting, photographing and enjoying wild plants.
While it is fine to option most plants, if you're picking wild plants in that location are some things to consider.
The BSBI Lawmaking of Conduct contains guidance on how to collect responsibly and stay within the law. Download a free re-create from the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland website.
Fred adds, 'Picking flowers can aid children larn virtually them and become more enthusiastic most nature and protecting it. The same is true for adults.
'Picking wild flowers with care and in moderation is commonly fine. The guide we've put together will aid you to avoid the instances where it would harm plants or is illegal.
'It's also a good thought to follow the "one in twenty dominion". This means that, if at that place are twenty plants, it is okay to take from i of them, every bit long every bit it'due south not a species protected by legislation. Picking in moderation ensures enough is left for others to savor and for the plant to survive.'
Be sure to collect responsibly and check the BSBI Lawmaking of Conduct if you plan to choice wild plants. Follow the 'i in twenty rule': if you want to collect a plant, at that place should be at least xx of them in the area.
Acme tips for pressing plants
- Drying flowers quickly tin assistance preserve colour. Yous desire a location that's warm enough to get rid of moisture rapidly, without cooking your specimen.
Fred adds, 'Endeavor drying your institute specimen adjacent to a radiator or central heating boiler if you have one - these provide a dainty menstruum of warm air. Fifty-fifty warming the newspaper before using it helps drive moisture off.'
- Newspaper works well every bit the immediate covering for your plant specimen because it is fairly absorbent and has anti-fungal backdrop.
- If you want to press a succulent plant or something with a large stalk, use kitchen curl to absorb the actress wet that comes out on the first mean solar day, and throw it away. Ditto if you lot are trying to press multiple specimens at once. Place the kitchen curl then that it is an actress layer outside of the newspaper. Y'all could also consider cutting the institute stem in half.
- If y'all're trying to printing a bulkier plant, add actress paper and card to ensure that every part of the constitute and flower is existence direct pressed, to avoid bits shrivelling up.
- Fred warns, 'Don't use sticky record to adhere your flower to card. Information technology discolours things and hands falls off the carte du jour, but non the specimen. Mucilage is much better, particularly PVA.
He adds, 'Traditionally people used to stitch pressed plant specimens onto thick newspaper. You lot could attempt that, if y'all enjoy sewing and have suitable paper, merely glue works perfectly well.'
How long does information technology take to printing flowers?
Depending on what institute y'all are pressing and the drying conditions, it can accept from simply a couple of days to a few weeks for your specimen to dry completely.
The specimen is set once it no longer feels damp. The dried constitute may be quite brittle, so be careful when moving it.
Pressed flowers can brand beautiful pictures
What to do with pressed flowers and leaves
Here are some ideas for what to do once you have prepared some pressed flowers and leaves:
- Turn them into a framed picture.
- Decorate bookmarks and photo frames.
- Create unique cards to send to friends and family unit.
- Employ them to learn well-nigh plants in your local surface area and how to place them.
- Brand a collection recording the plants growing in your garden.
For the terminal 2 suggestions, it is a good idea to prepare herbarium sheets.
This assortment of herbarium sheets shows how well pressed plant specimens can go on their colour if they are dried quickly plenty
How to set a herbarium sheet
If yous are preparing a botanical specimen for a herbarium sheet, try to lay out the found to exist pressed so that it looks natural and arrange the leaves so that both surfaces tin can be seen. Each side of a leaf may contain features important for identifying the constitute.
Make sure to add a label of information about the specimen. It is helpful to include what the constitute is, if you lot know, and the proper name of the person who collected it. However, the most important things to notation are the plant'southward location and the engagement it was nerveless.
Fred explains, 'This data transforms the specimen from being purely aesthetic to scientifically valuable.'
It's not only flowering plants that can be pressed - conifer, fern, moss, lichen and even seaweed specimens are all mounted on herbarium sheets at the Museum.
A drove of fern herbarium sheets
Creating an invaluable drove
With advisable care, pressed plants tin final for hundreds of years. The Museum has volumes of herbarium sheets dating from as far back as the late 1600s and early on 1700s.
Amidst the oldest are the collections of Hans Sloane, who bequeathed to the nation 265 bound volumes containing an estimated 120,000 constitute specimens from more than 70 countries and territories. Along with other specimens he donated, they formed the foundation of the Museum.
Other, slightly younger, historical specimens dating to the early 1700s include those of the Duchess of Beaufort, who had the outset greenhouses in England and pressed flowers from her garden, and the wonderfully ornate herbarium sheets from George Clifford's collection, which were catalogued past famous taxonomist Carl Linnaeus. Both collections document plants newly cultivated in Europe.
Like many of the mounted specimens of George Clifford's herbarium sheets, prepared in the 1730s, these two appear to exist growing out of decorative, engraved paper urns. On the right is the first recorded specimen of French lavender (Lavandula dentata). The other specimen is lion'south tail (Leonotis leonurus).
Today, these historical specimens and others nerveless over the past four hundred years provide interesting information about plant biodiversity and planting habits.
Fred says, 'Thank you to carefully prepared labels that record where the plant was collected and when, these serve as important scientific and cultural records.
'We can use them to learn how patterns of wild plant biodiversity have altered, whether the changing climate is affecting flowering times and even how collectors worked, and with who, to make their collections.
Source: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/how-to-press-flowers.html