It’s always wonderful to surround yourself with reminders of your happiest and proudest memories. One way to do this is by hanging onto your keepsake flowers. Whether you have a bridal bouquet, anniversary flowers, birthday flowers, or congratulatory flowers from a graduation, you can save them and display them by pressing your bouquet. Our florists at Phoenix Flower Shops put together this easy to follow guide on pressing your flowers to create beautiful keepsake displays.

How to Press and Frame Your Keepsake Flowers

Dried Pressed Wild Flowers

Pressing your flowers and displaying them in a botanical frame is a perfectly lovely way to commemorate a special event. You can also use the flowers in a scrapbook or as decoupaged decorations on a shadow box filled with other keepsakes.

There are several methods for pressing flowers, and they all work well. The most traditional method involves using a classic flower press. This contraption sandwiches flowers between absorbent paper, cardboard, and two hard flat surfaces like wood or tiles. You can also press flowers in paper between heavy books that are stacked with a brick or two. Depending on the type of flowers being press, these methods can require several days or a few weeks to dry flowers completely.

Pressing Flowers

If you’d like to speed up the process, you can also press flowers, using a clothing iron. First, you’ll need to flatten the flowers using heavy books or boards. With your flattened flowers resting between two sheets of absorbent paper, like parchment or even coffee filters, turn your iron onto a low heat setting and turn off its steam function. Proceed to iron your flowers on your regular ironing board, until they are totally dry. You’ll know all the moisture has left your pressed flowers when they begin to feel a little like tissue paper.

Composition with Pressed Flowers

Flower pressing and botanical frames work best for less dense flowers. English roses, for example, don’t press very well. With so many petals, they take a very long time to dry and end up looking a bit smooshed when complete. If you do want to press a flower with a thick bloom, we recommend splitting it in half first and then pressing it with its “good” side facing down.

What to Do If Your Bouquet’s Flowers Are Too Thick for Pressing

Pressed Flowers in Frame

Sometimes mixed bouquets contain flowers that don’t press very well, like lush roses. If this is the case with your keepsake floral arrangement, you can always dry the flowers, instead of pressing them. To dry flowers, remove the leaves, tie the stems together, and hang them upside down in a warm, dark location.

Colorsplash Cube

Dried Flowers in Bunch

If you choose to dry your flowers, you can display them as a bouquet in a vase, arrange them inside a shadow box, or even use them to make a floral wreath filled with happy memories. For more information about the best flowers for pressing and the best flowers for drying, we welcome you to stop by Phoenix Flower Shops any day.