Core skills - Part 5: How to check your flowers in the press

Part 5 - How to Check Your Flowers in the Press

In this lesson, we'll cover what to do if your flowers aren't quite ready and learn how to prepare them for a longer pressing.

Checking Flowers

Step 1: Follow the instructions in Steps 1-3 from the previous lesson.

Step 2: Look at both the flowers and the paper. If the flowers still appear relatively fresh and feel wet to the touch, they are not ready to be removed from the press. The paper may also feel damp.

Step 3: If there are still some dry sections of your paper, you may be able to simply move the flowers around so that they are sitting within these dry sections. The paper beneath the flower head in particular will get wet quickly as it's this part of the flower that holds the most moisture, so try just nudging these out of the damp patches.

Step 4: Ideally, you want to keep the press as dry as possible, so if you find that the existing paper is just too wet, it's worth swapping it out for a fresh dry sheet. To do this, gently pick up the flowers and place them onto a new sheet of absorbent paper. Remove the wet paper, and put your new dry layer of paper with the flowers on back into the press.

Step 5: Add another fresh sheet of absorbent paper on top, and place the barrier layer of the card back on top.

Step 6: The absorbent paper can be reused in future presses - just make sure it's fully dried out before using it again.

Step 7: Continue this process, checking each layer. At this stage, the flowers are still pretty malleable and you can edit how their forms are sitting - adjust any petals that might have folded over or leaves that have become misshapen.

Step 8: Once you have gone through every layer in the press, you can seal it back up and store it in a dark and dry place ready to be checked again in a week or so.