I took a few minutes to pick some more hellebore blooms today, this time for pressing. I’ll probably use these to made handmade cards — a thin layer of Mod Podge, dry pressed flowers, another layer of Mod Podge, maybe a third, and you’re all set. An easy craft to do with kids too, and it gives lovely results!
Hellbores press beautifully. You can do them in the pages of a book, the old fashioned way, or in a flower press, or between paper towels in the microwave, but this year, I indulged myself with the Microfleur microwave flower press. (Alas, I am not being paid anything for this product placement!)
I love the press — it gives me the instant gratification I’m looking for. In my microwave, which isn’t very powerful, it takes about thirty seconds to transform a fresh hellebore bloom into a flattened pressed one. (Be careful with initial microwaving, as some microwaves are much more powerful — try a short burst to calibrate.)
Now, the hellebore bloom is not entirely dry at that point, and you can certainly put it back in and do another short burst, maybe twenty seconds, and another after that, maybe fifteen seconds. But it starts getting iffy, because it’s easy to burn them doing that; you lose color, with everything going brown.
Instead, what I’ve taken to doing is the initial burst in the press, and then I transfer the flattened blooms to a book (in this case, a garden book I’ve read and that I don’t mind getting some flower stains on) to finish pressing / drying. Within a week, they should be dry and ready to use, so if you’re not in a hurry, this is a great hybrid method, combining some instant gratification with ease and relatively quick results.
The last photos show you some cards I made in February, and some bookmarks from previous years. (Hellebore blooms are a little big for bookmarks!).
Total time picking and pressing today — 20 minutes? Quick! With one of Monty Don’s shows going in the background — I’m rewatching Big Dreams, Small Spaces, one of my favorite garden shows.
