Mother's Day Card ...

Here in the UK we're all set to celebrate Mother's Day on Sunday, 15th March. I think they use different dates in the US and in Australia.

Normally we make a photo card for my mother with some of the funny snap shots that we always seem to have an abundance of in our family. But this year I've also made a card for her using some pressed flowers from the garden.

I started with a blank card, and stamped it with a Just for You! stamp. Then I got to work gluing on my pressed flowers. I use a wood glue that turns transparent when it dries out.

You wouldn't believe that those wonderful red leaves on the card were really the pressed remains of my Christmas poinsettias. I'll let you into a secret: my Christmas poinsettias ended up looking like this:

Shush! Don't tell anyone or Social Services will be after me for cruelty to pot plants. The truth of the matter is that I'm not brilliant at keeping my poinsettias alive, and they rarely make it through to the New Year under my tender care. But the silver lining is that I was able to salvage some red leaves (or are they petals?) to press. I turned them upside down on my card as I thought that the underside with all those wonderful green-tinged veins brought more texture and interest to the composition.

Not very long ago those large pressed flowers in the centre looked like this: 

They're hellebores from my garden. I bought a starter/ mixer pack of six a few years' ago, and they've given me my money's worth ever after with so much colour in the grey months of January and February when there's nothing else in bloom.  I cut these ones a few weeks' ago, and put them in the press wondering how their big fleshy blooms would turn out. And the answer was: beautifully. See what I mean: 

The colours contrast rather well with the poinsettia leaves, don't you think?

The third guest at the party was a dwarf cyclamen, which was growing just beside my front door. I buy cyclamens every year to add a little mid-winter colour to my flowerpots. Once they've done their thing I plant them in the flower bed at the front and they've been rewarding me with colour through the greyest months of the year ever since. 

If you'd like to press some flowers of your own for card-making it's super easy. I made my own press from some bits of plywood using a jigsaw. You can read about it here: how to make a flower press. 

And today, when I had a snoop round the garden to see what was worth foraging for my press, I came up with these beauties: 

Aren't they wonderful? I've got some more hellebores, some primroses, a few dwarf cyclamens and an early flutter of scented violets. I also found these slightly different hellebores, which were so pretty that it felt positively sinful to squeeze them in the press: 

It was a lovely dry, sunny day so I picked them and laid them out straight away as the filling between newspaper and cardboard sandwiches in the press. If there's any rain you'd be best advised to pick your flowers with their stems intact and leave them indoors in a vase of water to dry out for several hours before pressing. If they're damp they're liable to go a bit mouldy in the press.

It's also not a good idea to bunch them too close. If they touch one another they tend to meld together, which will leave them looking strange.

I'll leave these babies to press for a few weeks, and when they're done I'll take them out and see what they inspire me to make.

Maybe I'll make another conventional bouquet, or maybe it'll be the swishy dress for a flower fairy. 

All the best for now,

Bonny x

As shared on Friday Finds