I am beyond excited about today’s project I worked with Arianna in past weeks. It is about a craft project I loved as a kid and that helped me be more curious about nature and made me wanted to explore more and get out of the house. You guessed it, it’s pressing plants!

She was very intrigued about leaves and small flowers she didn’t even noticed before, and genuinely excited when she got to put them in her basket.

Autumn it’s great for this craft due to large variety of colours and patterns on leaves that you can find anywhere. With the pressed plants we can create a large variety of art when the weather it’s too nasty to go out, so in my opinion it’s a win-win situation.

After gathering the plants, flowers or leaves, we used the classical method for pupils to press plants, which is to use a book. Apparently there are various methods, which may be more quick, but I can’t say I tried any of them.

For my method, you only need an old book, that you are not attached with and that may get ruined (stained pages), and some weights.

We picked the flowers, got inside and chose the book to use. We placed one plant in between the pages of the book and repeated the process with the other plants, making sure that in between the flowers chosen there were at least 20 pages, to make sure they don’t get stained with each other’s fluids after pressing.

When we finished placing the flowers and we were happy with it, we placed the book under the heaviest photo albums we own, back on our bookshelves. It will take up to one week to press the plants safely and dry completely, but you can use different methods as well for a quicker result.

You can make a herbarium or use the plants for crafts once they are done, and really, sky is the limit!

I enjoy this project as much as Arianna, and same is my niece! Every walk around the park or neighbourhood is now a scavenger hunt and we are all looking forward to it, and for sure the little ones are observing the nature more closely and seeing it’s beauty.

Have you tried pressing plants before? Share your experience with us and leave us a comment down below and share my posts on social media for your friends to see it too. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.

Stay safe,
Flo