Make a Gift For Grandmother
Flowers always make such a lovely gift. But often they don't last as long as you would like. But there is something we can do about that.
Here we make some pretty pressed flowers and then make a nice arrangement in a simple picture frame. Grandmothers and grandfathers alike will love this beautiful, personal gift.
Flower pressing is really interesting and fun. Some flowers and leaves make better results. So don't be too worried if you don't get great results on your first try. This is half the fun. Go round and try lots of different things and you will become a flower pressing expert.
What We Need to Do Flower Pressing for a Gift for Grandmother
- Flowers and leaves
- A flower press, or a collection of heavy books
- Glue
- Small brushes for the glue or cocktails sticks
- Something to decorate, a picture frame a greetings card or gift tag
Start Making Our Gift For Grandmother
First we need to collect some pretty flowers and interesting leaf shapes. Pay attention to the sizes. Small flowers and huge leaves will not look good together.
You can get flowers from your garden or a park or even from a shop.
Flowers that are flat will be easier to press. Rather than big round flowers, like some roses for example. But if you really have found a flower you like, but it is very bulky, we can simply remove some of the petals and press them. Then rearrange the petals in a way that looks like the original flower.
The Next Step of Our Gift For Grandmother
Now we need to carefully lay out our flowers and leaves between layers of card and paper. If you have a flower press you can use this now. Create the layers of flowers, petals and leaves. When ready pop the top back on and screw it down tightly.
If you don't have a flower press you can use a great big stack of heavy books. Make your layers on a flat surface where you won't need to move it all for a while. Then stack the books on top of each other, one at a time.
Check The Pressed Flowers For Our Gift
We need to leave our flowers and leaves being pressed for about a week. They need to be completely dried out. If they still seem a little bit floppy. Press them again, but maybe put them in a slightly warmer location.
Once they are all dried out, we can gently remove them from the papers we were using to press them. Once they are died, they tend to become a bit more fragile. If they are delicate you can use a pair of tweezers here.
Arrange your new creations on a sheet of paper ready for decorating your gift for grandmother.
Now To Finish Making Our Gift For Grandmother
Decide what you want to decorate. We will start with a gift tag. You can use the tweezers to gently place the flowers on the gift tag. This will give you an idea of what the design looks like. Feel free to swap out different flowers and change their positions.
Once you have an arrangement that looks nice, we can think about gluing them in position.
Use a small paintbrush or even a cocktail stick to more accurately apply a small amount of glue to the back of each flower. Then gently glue the pieces in place and press down to make sure everything has good contact with the card.
We finish by making a nice set of pretty picture frames with a beautiful flower display inside. These make a perfect gift for grandmother and we are sure yours will love them too.
