Botanical Notecards: Make your own holiday cards and gifts

It’s not too late to press flowers and leaves of annuals and perennials to make your own botanical cards for holiday greetings or gift giving.

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It ’s not too tardy to press flowers and leave of yearly and perennials to make your own botanical placard for vacation greetings or gift giving . This past week I taught four classes to the Homemakers of Arkansas and we had rafts of fun and creativity going on . I started pressing botanicals for these workshops back in the spring with pansies , daffodil , beeding hearts , lily - of - the - valley , sweet woodruff and more . Of course the summertime time of year provided me with an infinite smorgasbord of leaves and efflorescence . And then I harvested the descent blossom before the frost .

I built a flower press of large and toilsome proportion many years ago and it does a nifty job . However , the cock-a-hoop ole ’ fat phone book from years ago are good for fight an copiousness of botanical too . I ’ve habituate some of my big threatening books , although if you do this you ’ll need to stratum paper or papertowels or headphone volume pages on both sides of the botanical since they give off moisture as they dry and it will wrinkle the pages of a rule book . A calendar week is about enough time for drying botanicals , however I often allow them in the books or press for months until I am ready to use them .

The technique / recipe list below is pretty old – I did this with the Girl Scouts about 20 year ago . The climb newspaper is translucent so the botanical are not quite percipient and bright , yet they attend attractive – perchance a minute erstwhile fashioned – and fitting to the medium .

I also corrupt a roll of readable , matte , Contact paper and worked with this for my fisrt time . It work quite well and the leaves and flowers are brighter since the Contact newspaper is clear and a bit shiny . If you decide to use the Contact paper , be sure to utilise a fiddling gum or a glue joystick to secure the botanicals to the paper or bookmark first . Once you peel off the funding of the Contact newspaper and hover it above your botancial design , the stable elctricity will soak up those botanical up like a magnet – and not needfully in the place that you want them to be .

I still choose the wax paper method acting for cards and I like the Contact newspaper for shit bookmarks and natural endowment cards . prune the Contact paper , just a spot bigger than the cardstock or bookmark and trim it off after attach . Use a holepunch to punch a hole in the conclusion of the bookmarker or giftcard and tie a pretty ribbon , twine or yarn through it .

This is a fun undertaking to do with children , friend or family unit and with the price of scorecard these days – it is deserving the time and energy – a hand-crafted botanical card is a gift from you and your garden .

Botanical Notecards

These are canonic pedagogy - use your imagination and other materials to inspire - come up with your own creations . To make the herbal notecards you will require to put together the following fabric :

press , dried herb leaves and flowersNotecards and envelopesCard - stock paper with envelopesElmer ’s or Tacky glue ( dries clear)Paint brushing for glueWax paperMetallic threadPencilsRulersScissorsIronTowel

broadcast your working area with newspaper or a plastic tablecloth . close down a towel in half to iron on and punch the iron into an outlet . You will be using a very low setting on the iron – just warm – no steam .

In a lid or small container I ruffle about 1 teaspoon of glue with 1 teaspoon of water which dilutes the mucilage and is comfortable to spread on the botanicals without tear them . merge more as involve .

If you want to have a colored paper under the botanicals , depending upon the size of your visiting card , bout or burn the circuit board - stock newspaper publisher into rectangles or other shape that are smaller than the card . I often use the botanical at once on the bill of fare . Select some pressed material and arrange it to fit the newspaper . When you are happy with your intention , softly spread the glue on the back of the botanical and position them on you paper or card . If using slanted cardstock , paste it into place on the card . Then spread a littleglue around the border of the visiting card to make the wax newspaper adhere . Place a patch of wax paperoverall(it should be much larger than the calling card so that you may tear or trim the sharpness off once it is attached ) and compact around the glued sharpness .

Carefully transfer the card and wax composition to a towel and gently press the wax paper over the plant life textile . The iron should not be too hot or it will burn the newspaper , but it should be warm enough to melt the wax .

Once cool , tear ( using a ruler ) or cut the wax newspaper to trim edges . If desired , wrap some metallic thread around the circuit board .

I often , target them in or under a heavy Word to bid them truehearted and flat . signal the back of the card and number the plant material used . I commonly give a packet of 6 or 8 of these notecards as a gift , tie together with some pretty cloth ribbon .

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An array of botanical notecards, bookmarks and giftcards.Photo/Illustration: susan belsinger

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