DIY Pressed Flower (Botanical) Bookmarks

Making pressed flower bookmarks is a great activity to do with your child.  Not only is it fun, but you end up with a beautiful, useful finished product.  Here are some of the benefits of making them and traits it encourages in your child.

• Time spent in nature (This is always a plus!)
• Alertness as we picked out the flowers and leaves to collect
• Patience as we waited for the flowers to dry
• Carefulness in laying out the flowers, both as we pressed them and as we made the bookmarks

Here’s how my daughter and I made the bookmarks along with some tips we learned.

How to make pressed flower bookmarks

We collected our leaves and flowers in March so we didn’t have many choices. March is pretty drab here in New York. This made us more alert as we looked for what we could dry even when there weren’t any flowers blooming. We’ve since dried some flowers from a bouquet we bought at Aldi, so if I remember, I’ll be back with pictures of how those turned out.

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We arranged them on old newspapers so that they weren’t overlapping.

We then pressed them between sheets of newspapers in old books.  We left them for a little over a week. Depending on how thick your petals are, you may have to dry them anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

Then we laid them out between laminating sheets.  We chose to make clear bookmarks.  The paper underneath is just for a guide.  I drew lines on the sheets to show where the bookmarks separated.  We were careful to not have any of the leaves or petals overlapping the lines, but looking back I think I wouldn’t worry about this.  I like the way the leaves or petals that ended up being cut in half (because they shifted) define the edges of the bookmarks.

Hint: Be careful when closing the laminating sheets. They can be full of static and cause the flowers to shift quite a bit so close them slowly.

We then carefully put the laminating sheets through the laminator.  Some of the leaves didn’t stay exactly in place, but it didn’t really matter. Here’s the finished product.

That’s it. You can add ribbon (like this kind), or embroidery floss to one end if you wish. We used yarn on a few of ours, because we didn’t have ribbon. We’re drying more flowers, and I’m excited to see how the bookmarks we make from them will turn out. My daughter loves giving gifts to people and these are perfect to give to others and send in the mail. They’re pretty and useful. They would make a lovely Mother’s Day gift as well.

Update: Here are photos of our new bookmarks. Link to the PDF with the verses is below, if you’d like to make some of your own with either Scripture or Mother’s Day quotes on them.

Here’s a downloadable PDF of Mother’s Day quotes & Scriptures you could use as backgrounds for the bookmarks.

And if you don’t follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you might want to check me out there. I post nature ideas and activities there that never make it into blog posts.