This sweet little activity takes me back to my childhood…wondering through the meadows of wildflowers beside my old family home, the smell of summer and feeling the heat upon my little freckley face…picking flowers and making my way home to find big old heavy books to press them in, for future little creative ideas. A little trip down memory lane for me, and a whole new creative venture for those little ones in my life.
what you need…
- heavy old books
- blotting paper
- flowers
- scissors
what to do…
- cut the flowers to your required size, preferably no bigger than the blotting paper or page of the book, so the whole flower and stem is pressed
- open the book to the centre and place a piece of blotting paper onto the page
- place the flower onto the blotting paper and then take another piece and place it on top
- close the book shut and press down
- put it to the bottom of the pile of lots of books or squeezed back into a tight shelf
- leave for a week or so, to achieve the desired pressed effect
into a little dream adventure…
- once the flowers have dried maybe arrange them on some folded card and stick them down carefully and send to a loved one as a birthday card or thank you note – maybe this would be a good idea for a Father’s Day card!!!
- observe and talk about which flowers pressed the best and why they think that is?
- look at the detail of each flower, how has it changed since its been pressed? has the colour changed? is it more delicate than before? lots of questions to engage curiosity…
- which are their favourite flowers and if they pressed flowers again which ones would they like to?