If you have a special floral arrangement such as your wedding bouquet, anniversary flowers, or a congratulatory graduation design, then you might want to hold onto the flowers to remind you of your happy memories. To save your flowers, you can either press or dry them. At Ron & Alicia Robinson Florist in Rowland Heights, Glendora, and Whittier, we absolutely love the delicately beautiful keepsake designs you can create from pressed flowers.

Bouquet of Dried Roses

How to Press Your Special Bouquet

There are a variety of ways to press flowers. No matter which you choose, it’s best to start the process while your blooms are still fresh. To press flowers, you can either use a traditionally designed flower press or you can improvise with items found around the house. As long as you press your flowers in an absorbent paper like parchment or even coffee filters and use a heavy, hard surface to compress them, you’ll get great results. We recommend putting flowers between paper, then between two heavy books, and finally putting a brick or two on top of the books. To allow enough time to dry, leave your flowers in the press for several days or a few weeks before removing them.

Pressing Flowers

If you’d like to speed up the process, you can press your flowers, using an iron. You’ll first want to put your flowers between sheets of paper and flatten them with heavy books. Then move your papers and flowers to the ironing board. With your iron on its lowest heat setting and with its steam switched off, gently iron your flowers until all of their moisture has evaporated.

When to Dry, Instead

Dazzling Style Bouquet

Pressing flowers to preserve them works better for some flowers than other. Less dense or naturally flat faced blooms like the alstroemeria and wax flowers found in our Dazzling Style Bouquet produce wonderful results when pressed. Other denser flowers, however, won’t press as well. For example, English roses, carnations, and globe thistle would need to be split in half before pressing, while sunflowers should always be dried.

Bouquet of Dried Flowers in Glass Vase

Preserving Your Pressed Flowers

To make sure your pressed flowers stay beautiful for a long time, there are a few things you can do to protect them. It’s important to make sure they’re completely dry before you stop the pressing process. They’ll feel like tissue paper once they’re ready.

You should also take care to handle them very gently. In fact, you might want to use tweezers to peel your dried flowers away from the parchment paper in which they were pressed.

You can strengthen pressed flowers by spritzing them with a few coats of an unscented hairspray. It’s also important to keep them out direct sunlight to prevent their colors from fading.

Dried Pink Roses

The Best Ways to Display Pressed Flowers in Your Home

Pressed flowers can be kept in a scrapbook or even decoupaged onto its cover, but our favorite way to display pressed flowers is in a botanical frame. You can either arrange flowers to mimic your original bouquet’s design or you can rearrange them to create something brand new. Hang them on the wall in a place where you’ll see and appreciate them every day.

Pressed Flowers in Frame

For more information about the best flowers to dry and press, we welcome you to stop by Ron & Alicia Robinson Florist.