Here's my entry for the bookmark contest. I would like to thank @kristyglas for organising this creative activity. We've been given 'freedom' to experiment with any technique from paper to yarn. I appreciate the challenge of making something new and explore different crafts beyond my comfort zone.
I don’t have a flower press so when I find flowers or leaves I want to 'preserve', I put them sandwiched in grease-proof paper in between pages of my craft books. They normally act as bookmarks like this:
I then find them and keep them like that. To be honest, sometimes they fall out and ‘break’… This activity gave me the chance to make something with these dried flowers : a proper old-fashioned bookmark !
So I had last year’s primula flowers and fuchsia I rescued before they died. They dried quite well in between the grease-proof paper and even kept some of the colour. The tiny little flowers were still quite 3 dimensional so they wouldn’t lie still… A bookmark has got to be flat so it doesn’t ruin the book, I thought.
My materials consisted of the dried flowers, scissors, PVA glue, a brush, water, a paper serviette I found with nice bird designs and toilet tissue paper. Tissue paper like the one you get in presents or new shoes is better but I didn’t have any.
I cut around my chosen paper designs and laid them on a piece of card together with the dried flowers I thought I could use.
I played around a bit with the layout but as you can see the birds are out of scale anyway so… I just put them randomly and I really wanted to incorporate those small white flowers...
I put the length of (toilet) tissue on top and started applying, wetting and glueing a mixture of 50/50 PVA and water.
That’s when it became totally clear that the little white flowers wouldn’t make it in my collage. I rescued some of the remnants when they broke off.
I nearly panicked at various points, but managed to keep calm. It just looked like a very sticky mess.
The toilet tissue disintegrated too quickly which is why I believe the better quality tissue is more suitable. I managed to break down bits of the white flowers too; they looked like mini flowers.
Uncertainty - will it work ? will it dry transparent ?
Thanks to the record high temperatures we’ve been having everything dried quickly and thoroughly overnight.
I punched a hole and found twine for the characteristic finishing touch.
It worked ! in any case not as much texture as I expected but it was good to see it worked and now those dried flowers have a ‘forever home’.
The closeup…
The activity has inspired me to continue to keep drying flowers using my ‘grease-proof paper method’ …
Thank you again to @kristyglas for organising this fab activity.
All photos and work by @cryptocariad