Back in October, I decided to preserve some of the last flowers of the season from our gardens, by means of pressing. I went out to the gardens and cut the best-looking cosmos.
I cut the stems as close to the flower as I could get.
I especially liked this one with the darker center, fading to lighter at the ends of the petals.
I grabbed a bunch of my heaviest cookbooks and some plain copy paper. I placed a sheet of paper down on the page inside the book, then placed the flowers face down on the sheet of paper so that they were not touching.
Oh wow, that cupcake looks heavenly. I might have to make that…
After I arranged all my flowers, then I placed another sheet of plain paper on top of the flowers and closed the book. I did several pages in several different books. I placed the books in an out-of-the-way place and left them undisturbed for the next several months.
I used to have a real flower press, who knows what became of that.
On a gloomy dreary day recently, I thought I’d take a look at those cosmos and see how they came out.
I found that many of the petals got crinkled up or folded under. I guess I wasn’t careful enough when I placed them on the sheets of paper.
I gathered some wood slices I have that Father Cottage made from a tree we cut down on our property last year. I thought decoupaging them to the wood slices would be a neat way to display the dried flowers.
I like the way the back of the flower looks rather than the front. In the end, I wasn’t happy with the way the decoupaged flowers looked on the wood slices. I think the flowers are too delicate and get lost in the wood grain, the white ones faded into the grain so that you couldn’t even see them,
I think I enjoyed the process of cutting the fresh flowers, arranging them and then photographing them, more than anything. However, I am thinking of other ways to use the rest of the pressed flowers. Do you have any projects that you have done that you could suggest?
Thank you for being here today.
xo Kim
Red Dirt Farm and Studio 
HmmmmmI wonder if they are too fragile to make a flower garland? You could glue light weight thread or string to the backs of the flowers-spacing the flowers out every few inches on the string. When the glue dried-hang it in a window or against a wall. First idea that popped into my head-but there’s got be lots of ways to use these beautiful things.
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Yes Debra they are really fragile. I don’t think that they can hold up without some sort of backing. I love the idea of light shinning through them. However everything I read says they will eventually fade no matter what you do with them. Ah fleeting beauty. I guess that is what I love about them. Xo kim
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They pressed beautifully! This made me laugh: “I used to have a real flower press, who knows what became of that.” I get that. Although I haven’t pressed Cosmos (yet) I enjoy using violets for adorning simple bookmarks. Best with a laminating machine, but who knows what became of mine!
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Those Cosmos make beautiful dried flowers. Sarah x
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