DIY Forever: Pressed Flower Lumiaries

Last night was this month's adult craft event.  We made delightful luminaries with pressed flowers and leaves in the shade panels.  This is a great craft that can be easily adapted to be as simple or complex as you desire.  Whatever you choose to do, as all of our crafters found, your resultant luminary will look absolutely brilliant with a candle or LED votive flickering inside.  We all had a great time and you can too!  Just check out the pictures and instructions by clicking "read more" and start crafting!



     
This was an amazingly fun craft to make and the resulting lantern provides such beautiful ambiance you'll want to cover every flat area available with them.  Credit where credit is due, we were inspired to do this craft from the folks at A Practical Wedding and we borrowed their images for the instruction page you find below.  So you should definitely check them out . . . they are full of amazing ideas and projects that can fit well for special occasions and everyday fun.

     Speaking of instructions, you will notice the how-to sheet skips a few beginning steps.  This is because I did them before the event to move things along a bit.  This includes finding flowers and leaves you like, pressing them, and cutting the wax paper sheets.  All of these steps are easy and fun - so I'll go through them now. :)

     First, you are going to go for a walk and find some leaves and flowers you'd like to use for the project.  A couple things to keep in mind:

• Be judicious about where you pick your flowers/leaves.  Do not go raiding someone's garden without their permission . . . that's just bad manners.
• Don't completely deflower or deleaf a plant.  Leave some for other people to enjoy, not to mention the plant itself!
• Keep in mind the size of the panels you plan to use the greenery in.  The instructions below assume a 4"x4" panel size.

Now that you have your flowers and leaves, it is time to press them.  You will need some newspaper and some heavy books.  You could also have or make a flower press rig, but we opted for the extremely low-tech (read: LAZY) route.  Line your flowers and leaves on a third of the newspaper and fold them inside, surrounding the leaves in paper.  Then place them inside a book and pile some more books on top.  You may need to use multiple newspaper sheets or even multiple books.  Now just let them sit for a day.  Check the next day to see that the newspaper hasn't become saturated with moisture being pressed out of the flowers/leaves.  If the newspaper looks damp, discard it and wrap your flowers/leaves in new paper and placing them back in the book.  Let them be pressed in your pile of books for a week or so, checking periodically on the dampness of the newspaper and replacing when needed.  After a week, your flowers and leaves should be suitably pressed.  If you'd like a more in-depth explanation of pressing plants and flowers, the Montana 4H club has a great write up here.

     This is an easy step: cutting the wax paper.  The instructions below used 4"x8" strips that are folded in half to create a 4"x4" panel.  You can make them any size by simply multiplying the size you want your panels to be by two.  For example, a 3 inch panel would require strips that are 3 inch by 6 inch and a 6 inch panel would require a 6 inch by 12 inch strip.  You will need four of these strips to make one lantern.  Once you have this, just follow the instruction page below.

Go ahead and have a try, you'll love the result!  And take a couple pictures and share them with us in comments.  Have fun and keep crafting!