How to make pressed flower coasters and place mats
Flowers can be used to decorate your home in many ways. From fresh flower arrangements to flower photography, every part of your home can benefit from the lovely colours. If you are looking for new ways of brightening up your dining room table, how about making your own pressed flower place mats and matching coasters? They are really easy to make and you can even make a few different designs to suit different themes. For example, you can use red flowers for a romantic Valentine's Day theme or red, white, and green for Christmas.
You will need:- Pressed flowers of your choice (dried or artificial)
- Colourful paper
- Wood glue
- Small paintbrush
- Damp cloth
- Laminating sheets and laminating machine
- Sharp pair of scissors or guillotine
- Start by preparing your flowers. Artificial flowers will last longer but always take care of the thickness of the petals. You want to use the flattest flowers you can find. Daisy-like flowers are the easiest to press. If you struggle, petals can also help you create a superb design.
- Choose the colour of your paper based on the colour of your flowers. You want to make sure that your paper forms the background and that the flowers really stand out. Use light-coloured paper for dark flowers and dark paper for light-coloured flowers.
- When you are ready, make sure that you have enough flowers for all of your place mats and/or coasters.
- Apply the glue to the back of the flowers using a small paintbrush. Keep the damp cloth on hand just in case you get glue on your fingers. Position your flowers one by one and make sure that they are secure before you proceed.
- Once all of your flowers are in place, you need to let the glue dry. Make sure that you place the paper on a flat surface.
- When the glue is dry, place your paper inside a laminating sheet. Laminate the decorated pages one by one.
- If you are making place mats, you won't need to trim them. If you are making coasters, you will need to cut them down to size and place in smaller laminating sheets instead of one large one. If you were thinking of using a single piece of paper, laminating it, and then cutting it to size, avoid this shortcut. Cutting the sheets like this will expose the paper and the end result won't be nearly as attractive or durable.
- Remember, coasters need to be perfectly flat! You don't want your glasses to end up wobbling around! In this case, it might be worth your while to use two pieces of paper (one on top of the other. The bottom sheet should remain solid whereas the top one should have petal shapes cut out of it. Glue the petals to the bottom sheet and use tracing paper to copy the design. Then cut out the traced design (using a box cutter) on the second piece of paper. Place the cut piece on top of the design so that the petals are still visible. Glue the top piece of paper down to help raise everything to the same level before laminating.
