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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