The gardens are in full bloom. Sunflowers are bright and the lavender is sprinkled with purple. My new favorite flower, the Bachelor Button, is overtaking my garden and is making all of my fairy-tale wildflower field dreams come true. I am more than happy to enjoy the gardens now, but I don’t want the beauty to come to an end quite yet. There is always so much conversation over food preservation, but what about flower preservation? Should we not also enjoy the flowers of our labor? I’ll give you the answer – yes! We should absolutely be preserving garden fresh flowers. In the tutorial below we will talk about how to dry (press) flowers and some fun uses for preserved flowers.

Here’s the short version for those of y’all who just want the facts!

1. Gather your flowers, stemless is easiest to manage. Greenery works as well. 
2. Gather heavy books and cardstock. 
3. Place flowers/greenery in a single layer onto cardstock. Space out so there is a small space between items. Otherwise, they may dry together. 
4. Cover with another sheet of cardstock and place inside the book. Weigh down with other books (or actual weights).
5. Next, allow the flowers to sit for 1-3 weeks, checking occasionally for appropriate drying.
6. Lastly, remove from book and cardstock once thoroughly dried and use for whatever your heart desires!

Alright y’all, first things first. Go out into the garden, a field, on a walk. ANYWHERE. Go find some flowers, that is my point. Big flowers, small flowers, greenery, it doesn’t matter. Just find something beautiful that you want to preserve. Once you have your flowers and or greenery, come home and find that stack of encyclopedias, cookbooks, or “Les Miserables” and get to work. What you’ll need to press your flowers are a few sheets of cardstock (regular paper will suffice) and several large books. The size of the books needed will depend on the size of the flowers to be dried. 

I decided to try out a few pieces of tissue paper as well on top of a couple of my flower drying sheets and that worked out just fine. Use paper that is able to “breathe” and not something like wax paper that will hold the moisture from the flowers in. 

Basically, you will sandwich the flowers in between two sheets of cardstock, or tissue paper, etc.. Next, place the flower sandwich in the middle of a book larger than the surface of the paper. This project requires some patience, so stack a few books on top of each other and wait a week or so. If you live in a humid climate, you may need to wait up to 3 weeks for your flowers and greenery to dry completely. Every couple of days, go ahead and lift up the paper a little bit and make sure your flowers are slowly drying. It’s rare, but mold could grow if unchecked. I have never experienced this but it never hurts to check. 

Once all the moisture is gone from your flowers, go ahead and remove them from the book and you are free to use them for anything you please! SO simple!! These dried flowers can be used for everything from bookmarks to scrapbooking to wall art and so much more. I have a few ideas that I will be sharing on the blog on Thursday, so come back and take a look to see what’s new. I hope this has helped you learn how to dry (press) flowers and preserve those garden blooms all year long. Let me know how it goes for you! I would love to see any of your dried flower pictures on Instagram. Tag me @makeshifthomestead and let’s celebrate your creation together!