Flower-Pressing — Crafting Greeting Cards

Aug 17

3 min read

Updated: Aug 18

This month's activity comes with a little throwback for me. It took me right back to a craft I did with my mom as a kid — back when the Yellow Pages were bigger than a Bible and were the handiest tool for flower pressing! Now the physical yellow pages are almost nonexistent — not heavy or thick enough to do the job right anymore.

Images of my son collecting flowers on our nature walk.

Summer is the perfect time for nature walks and soaking up all that outdoor beauty, so during ours, we collected a bunch of flower and leaf samples along the way. Back home, we sorted through our finds and put them to use with a tool actually designed for the job this time — a flower press binder from Bonnie Christine's Shop Flowerie. It has sheets of cardstock and handy straps to hold everything in place once it's layered in.

We let the flowers dry for a couple of weeks before moving on to part two — crafting!

Images of our wildflower findings arranged and layered in a flower press binder.

Unveiling the Pressed Flowers

Two weeks later, we opened up the press to see what we had. Some of the thicker, more delicate flowers came out too fragile to use, but most of the smaller flowers and leaves dried beautifully. We picked our favourites to turn into handmade greeting cards.

This one comes with a memory of its own — growing up, we'd do this activity right around Christmas, making holiday cards for friends and family. We'd build little landscapes by cutting large leaves into mountains and using tiny flowers and ferns as trees and greenery. It's such a warm memory, and there was something so satisfying about watching our mailbox fill up with cards we'd sent and received in return.

It's a lovely way to work on your kids' creativity and motor skills, and honestly, just as good for bonding away from the screens for a bit.

This could be the perfect activity for a back-to-school card this season — or, as fall rolls in, start collecting those red, yellow, and orange leaves to build up your stash for Thanksgiving crafting too.

Let that spark of joy light up your imagination and create something fun — I'd love to see what you make. So let's get crafting!

Above: images unveiling the pressed flowers.

Family Card-Crafting Activity

This one's meant to be a team activity, with an adult supervising and helping out depending on your child's age.

What you'll need:

Flowers and leaves collected on your nature walk
A pressing method:
- Any heavy book — tuck flowers between sheets of paper so they don't stain the pages
- An old magazine, with findings layered between paper sheets and a heavy book on top
- Or a flower press book, if you have one here's ours
4x6" blank cardstock cards, or make your own by cutting cardstock to 8x6" and scoring/folding in half
Coloured paper scraps for cutting shapes
Scissors
White or clear glue
A small brush, plus colour pencils, markers, or crayons.

*Images of tools and materials for crafting activity.*

Steps:

Head out on an inspiring nature walk with your kids and collect leaf and flower samples — let them do the picking to get them involved.
Back home, sort and arrange your finds.
Press your flowers using the method of your choice.
Let the press dry for one to two weeks.
Unveil your pressed flowers and pick your favourites. Once your materials are ready, brainstorm a design together — a flower basket? A bouquet?
Using coloured paper scraps, cut out shapes for your design (we did a vase and a truck).
Arrange your cutouts and flowers on a 4x6 cardstock card before gluing anything down.
Using a small brush, glue your arrangement in place — some flowers are delicate, so go gentle with the glue.
Let everything dry, then add any final details with colour pencils, markers, or crayons (we added a few chalky lines to ours).

Tip: Once finished, coat your flowers with a thin layer of glue to protect them or a light coat of fixative spray if you have one handy.