The Simple Joy of Pressed Flowers: A Beautiful Hobby

Today we’re returning to a nearly-forgotten pastime—one that brings together nature, memory, and quiet artistry. Pressing flowers is a practice of patience, preservation, and poetry.

There is something timeless about the gesture of placing a bloom between the pages of a heavy book. It is the desire to keep beauty close, to extend the fleeting, and to remember. Pressed flowers are not just crafts—they are souvenirs of seasons, of gardens grown, of days we don’t wish to forget.

In this post, I’ll walk you through how I press flowers at home, what tools make the process elegant and effective, and how these delicate petals can become part of your daily life.

Why Press Flowers?

In a world that moves quickly, pressing flowers invites us to pause. It gives us a reason to notice—to really notice—the shape of a petal, the line of a stem, the softness of a blossom.

Pressed flowers offer:

• A connection to the seasons

• A personal, tactile way to preserve moments

• A beautiful element for art, stationery, or simply framed on a wall

• An elegant craft that requires little space, few tools, and no urgency

How to Press Flowers

You don’t need much—just a little time, a little weight, and a little care.

1. Choose Wisely: Pick blooms that are not too thick. Pansies, violets, cosmos, herbs, and ferns press beautifully. Pick them when they are dry and at their loveliest.

2. Prepare Them: Trim stems, arrange petals just so, and lay each bloom between sheets of parchment or blotting paper.

3. Press with Purpose: Use a flower press or place them within the pages of a heavy book, weighed down with more books or bricks.

4. Wait: Give them 1 to 2 weeks. Resist the temptation to peek.

5. Preserve: Once dry, press them into journals, frame them, or mount them on handmade cards.

At The Mayfair Hall, we keep wooden flower presses, handmade paper, and glass frames on hand—little tools that make the process as beautiful as the result.

Ideas for Using Pressed Flowers

• Slip one into a letter

• Tuck into a frame and create a seasonal wall vignette

• Place under a glass tray or plate

• Decorate a candle jar or a tea tin

• Label herbs in your kitchen with pressed blooms beneath clear tape

They bring a whisper of the garden indoors, lasting long after the season has passed.

My Favorite Flowers to Press

• Pansies for their color and expression

• Ferns for elegant structure

• Hydrangeas, if thinned carefully

• Chamomile for its innocence

• Lavender for its scent and shape

Don’t be afraid to press herbs, leaves, or even wild grasses. Each carries its own kind of poetry.

Reminders

• Pick flowers in the morning, after dew has dried

• Press in parchment, never wax paper

• Use botanical labels and keep a small notebook of what you’ve pressed

• Keep framed flowers out of direct sunlight to prevent fading

• Try pressing seasonal blooms for each month of the year

I am grateful for today

• A morning spent in the garden with scissors and silence

• The delicate surprise of opening a book and finding a violet

• The way pressing flowers makes time slow, just a little

From Our House to Yours,
Mrs. Mayfair