Elizabeth's Flowers Microfleur Flower Press Tutorial:
How to press Crocus Flowers
The Microfleur
Microwave flower press beautifully captures the delicate beauty of
spring crocuses. There are, however, a few tricks to ensure
success.
1.Harvesting Crocus Flowers
One of the most
endearing characteristics of crocuses is that they tend to grow in
clumps. While this may make for a beautiful sight, it makes
harvesting them challenging. When cutting an
individual crocus, try to cut as near to the bottom of the pearly white
stem as you can. Also, take great care to avoid snipping the tips
of any of the foliage at this point, because you don't want to damage
the beautifully striped leaves.
After you have finished harvesting the flowers, go back and snip 2-3 leaves for every flower
that you picked. Cut them as close to the ground as you can,
however be sure to cut only 1-2 leaves from each individual plant.
It is important to not harvest too many leaves, because the bulbs rely
on the leaves to provide nourishment for next year's flowers.
2. Trimming the Crocus Flowers
Before microwaving the crocuses in the
Microfleur, it's a good idea to trim off all of the stamen as well as
the piston. As you will see, the stamen are loaded with bright
yellow pollen, which tends to stain anything it touches, and it can
cause the flower to turn brown in the microwave.
However, be sure to save the vivid
orange pistil. It retains every bit of its bold color after being
pressed in the microwave, and it adds a nice splash of color to the
pressed crocus.
3.Microwaving with the Microfleur Flower Press
Once the crocuses have been trimmed,
lay them out on the Microfleur pad, making sure that there is ample room
between each one.
The key to pressing crocuses successfully is to microwave them in a series of short bursts. I
generally start out with three sessions of 20 seconds each at full
power, and then I let the pads "rest" and cool down for a few minutes.
Finally, I microwave them for two additional 30 second bursts, and
they're done. I sometimes remove the leaves and pistils before the
last two microwave sessions, as they tend to dry more quickly than
the flowers do.
Enjoy!
To use your pressed crocus flowers, just carefully glue them down as you would any other
flower. I recommend coating them with
Perfect Paper Adhesive, which
is a tough, flexible crystal clear UV resistant coating.
PPA will help them maintain
their brilliant colors, and will provide an invisible layer of durable
protection.
I tend to use most of my pressed crocuses for my
Spring Crocus Cards,
however I've them used on handmade garden journal covers, and have seen
others use them in scrapbooks, and collages...even on a lampshade! However you decide
to use them, I know you'll find that pressing them and capturing their
lasting beauty will be well worth the effort.

"the beauty of each
blossom speaks silently of God's love..."
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