A super simple activity for Day 17 of #100DaysNoTV. I made a little memento of an autumn walk I had with the boys last year. They love being outdoors and collecting “treasure”, and we had carefully chosen some fallen leaves and – incredibly for the time of year – buttercups and daisies. I pressed them, stored them, and now (finally) they’re displayed!

Luckily, I was able to use things we already had in the house. I used a frame that had been sitting in a drawer, for goodness knows how long. We have an abundance of card and poster paint, so there was no issue with making a background for the flowers and leaves to stick on. I just had to decide how I wanted it to look.

I should probably mention the pressing process at this point. For our little collection we simply laid them as flat as possible on three sheets of white printer paper, covered with another three sheets and then put a pile of heavy books on top! I think we left them for a couple of weeks, but I imagine they would have been ready after a few days.

The “treasure” before pressing

Some flowers require different pressing and drying techniques, so please don’t assume this method will work for all.

Originally I had wanted a white frame, but when I found this one with its gorgeous walnut shade I thought it would look pretty awesome.

My instinct was to go with natural shades for the background, but in the end I went with a more modern look – influenced by my kikki.K notepads! I kid you not. Actually, I can’t take the credit for that; my notebook was behind Rob’s laptop and he picked it up and said, “How about something like this?”

Rob’s much more artistic than I am, so I let him do the painting. I think the boy did good! 😉

Mixing the perfect shades

Not a bad match!

After the background card had fully dried, I stuck it to the frame mount with some UHU glue. I love this stuff, it works amazingly well and dries super quick.

Dried flowers and leaves are delicate so a pair of tweezers is a handy tool! Just make sure you properly clean the glue off before using them on your eyebrows again. 😯 Aahh!

Rather than sticking them in a haphazard way, I planned the layout in advance.

I stuck the background card to the frame mount to keep it secure while I added the leaves and flowers

Not much is needed! UHU glue is perfect for this job. Tweezers and cocktail sticks made the job easier

Sticking stage complete

I used a cocktail stick to apply the glue to the flowers and leaves, so I was able to add tiny amounts. This meant there was no glue oozing out when they were stuck down to the card.

While the glue dried I cleaned the piece of glass from the frame. As it had been in the drawer for a while, the glass looked slightly tarnished in the daylight. I found that soapy water on a sponge cleaned it well, and drying with an e-cloth got rid of the streaks.

And, here it is! All finished.

Frame is reconstructed and it’s ready for hanging

Beautiful textures in the paint as well as the flowers and leaves

Happy with the end result and the boys love it too!

I realise it looks as though a small child made it 😉 but I’m happy, as all four of us were involved in its creation and it’s a cute keepsake for our boys.

This method is suitable for displaying all sorts of materials. How about a button collage, or a picture made out of fabric scraps, patterned card or wallpaper samples?

Collections of stamps, beer mats, concert tickets and anything else that can be stuck flat could be displayed in this way. The possibilities are endless!

If you have any ideas, or you’ve made something similar, please share with us. 🙂

Bye for now!