How to make Pressed flower prints

Pressed flower prints are a great way of preserving summer in your home. All the pressed flower prints I've made today are very quick and easy to make. I even made step by step tutorials for each print so that you can easily make your own dried flower wall arrangements. I've also included a link below to some great pressed and dried flower sources if you don't want to press flowers yourself.

Three Botanical Wall Art Ideas

I made these pressed flower prints as part of a new gallery wall that I'm planning in our dining room. Instead of spending money on generic wall art, I decided I'd rather make something unique to add some interesting texture to this space. If you've read my post 'How to make pressed flower lanterns', you'll already know how much I love using pressed flowers to make beautiful decorations for my home and garden. Pressed flower wall art is even easier to make and just as beautiful.

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Table of contents

• Pin for later!
• DIY Pressed flower prints
• Here's how to make pressed flower wall art
• Pressed Flower collage
• Watch on YouTube
• These posts are good too!
• Please leave a comment
• WAIT!

DIY Pressed flower prints

Update: I recommend that you look at my step-by-step flower pressing tutorial before you start this project. The tutorial has lots of tips and tricks for beginners in flower pressing.

Supplies needed for pressed flower wall art

You can easily press flowers for this project by placing them between pieces of blotting paper and weighing them down with heavy books. This process takes around two to three weeks depending upon the thickness of the flowers.

If you'd rather get started straight away, you can buy pressed flowers online instead.

Here's what you'll need:

Pressed Flowers

Tissue Paper (I used white)

½ Cup Flour

½ Cup Water

2 teaspoon Salt

Scissors

Bowl

Whisk

Pencil

1 Sheet of printer paper

1 piece of watercolour paper

Pair of Tweezers

Parchment paper

Hot Glue Gun

Hot Glue Sticks

Or super glue

Photo frames in a choice of sizes

Here's how to make pressed flower wall art

Pressed Buttercup Paper Mache Prints

First, protect your work surface from moisture by laying a tea towel or parchment paper over the area you intend to work.

Prepare the tissue paper

Cut some pieces of tissue paper to the same size as the inside of the frame you intend to use. I placed the dried buttercups onto several of my photo frames first to see how they looked before I decided on which size photo frame I was going to use.

Make a Paper Mache mixture

Add the flour, water and salt to a bowl and whisk together until there are no lumps and the mixture is completely smooth.

Apply the glue to the paper

Take a piece of printer paper and using a small but stiff paintbrush, brush the flour mixture all over until it is completely covered. It will wrinkle up but that's OK.

Layer glue and tissue paper

Add a layer of tissue paper over the top of the printer paper and gently smooth down.

Keep adding layers of glue and tissue paper until the paper is as thick as you need. I made three layers with tissue paper.

TIP: If you are making more of these pressed flower prints, save some time by making all of the paper backgrounds at the same time. For instance, I made the background for the Pressed Heuchera flower print right after I made this Buttercup print background.

Paste pressed flowers to the paper

Now place your pressed flowers onto the top layer.

Using the paintbrush, gently paste a layer of the glue over the top of the flowers being careful not to break them.

Cover with tissue paper

Take another layer of tissue paper and gently press it down over the top of the flowers.

Continue adding glue and tissue paper for another two layers or more if you don't want the colour of the flowers to be seen once it's dry.

Bear in mind, that even though you can see the flowers quite clearly after adding three layers of tissue paper, once the paper and glue dries, the paper will become more opaque.

Leave to dry

Leave to dry completely before completing the next step.

Drying will take a few hours depending on how many layers you've used. You could also use a hairdryer on a low heat setting to speed things up a little. I let mine sit on a cooling rack to dry for a few hours before finishing off with a hairdryer.

Once the pressed flower print is dry, use the scissors to cut the print to the size of the photo frame (if you have an overlap).

TIP: Don't forget to clean the frame with a damp cloth before using. For a simple and organic glass cleaner just add some white vinegar to a soft cloth and rub over the glass. Swill the pane of glass with fresh water afterwards to remove the vinegar smell. Dry thoroughly.

Frame your print

Insert your pressed flower print to the back of the photo frame. Add the paper print which came with the photo frame to pack out the frame a little. This will help to stop the print from moving around.

Your beautiful pressed flower print is ready to be hung or placed on a shelf in your home.

Doesn't it look beautiful?

Next up, I'll show you how I made the larger pressed flower print using the Heuchera flower stems.

Pressed Heuchera Flower Wall Art

Complete the same steps from the tutorial above to make your background paper and allow it to dry. In this case, I used the paper print which came with the frame, as the base for my backing paper in place of the printer paper.

Decide whether you wish to keep the Passepartout because this will affect where you place the flowers.

Cut the background to size

Once the tissue paper background is dry, turn it over so that the back is facing you and cut away the excess tissue paper. If you used the print which came with the photo frame as your base, this part will be easy and you won't have to measure.

Glue the flowers to the background

use a hot glue gun to add tiny drops of glue to the stem of the Heuchera flower stem.

Press the Heuchera flower stem to the tissue paper background paper.

Clean the photo frame as above and replace the glass.

The last pressed flower print I'm going to be showing you today is made from a collage of various garden flowers including, Nigella 'Love in a mist', and single Hydrangea flowers.

Pressed Flower collage

This lovely collage, is the easiest of all three pressed flower prints and can be made in minutes.

Make the paper background

Cut a piece of watercolour paper to the size of your photo frame. I used the Passepartout which came with my photo frame as a guide.

Make a collage of pressed flowers

Using the tweezers, arrange the delicate flowers into a collage of your liking.

Glue the pressed flowers to the background

Stick the flowers to the paper using the glue gun or some craft glue.

Clean the photo frame

Clean the photo frame as above.

Frame your pressed flower collage

Gently insert the pressed flower collage back into the frame.

Done!

Your pressed flower botanical wall art – finished!

The time needed for this project

It only took a few hours to make all of these lovely pressed flower prints. If you are making all of your wall art with watercolour paper, you could have them all finished in less than thirty minutes. The time it took for the tissue paper backgrounds to dry was what dragged this project out a little and even then, it only took a few hours waiting for the paper to dry before I could finish the project.

If you are looking for some unique botanical wall art for your home, this might be just the thing for you.

I still need to come up with a few more ideas for the rest of the frames for my gallery wall although for now, I'm happy with the progress I've made.

Watch on YouTube

Watch the video tutorial DIY Pressed Flower Wall Art on YouTube.

These posts are good too!

Please leave a comment

I'd love it if you'd leave a comment below letting me know what you think of my pressed flower wall art and if you have any suggestions for the rest of my frames, pop those in there too, I'm all ears!

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By the way, these posts are lovely too:)

Stylish and affordable botanical wall art for your home

How to make beautiful pressed flower lanterns

'A grateful Heart' and 'Thankful', FREE printable wall art

How to make a beautiful trivet from clothespins

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