It’s so easy to make a beautiful pressed flower bookmark! These transparent bookmarks, made with dried flowers and Mod Podge, are such a cool craft! They’re simple enough for kids to make, but also fun for teens and adults.
These colourful and cheerful dried flower bookmarks look great marking the page of your favourite novel! And they would make such a thoughtful homemade gift for the book lovers in your life — perfect for special occasions like birthdays or Mother’s Day.
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How to Make Pressed Flower Bookmarks
Materials:
- 1 sheet Transparency film
- Mod podge (matte)
- Pressed flowers
- 5 inches Thin ribbon (1/8 inch wide)
Check Out The Video Tutorial:
Instructions:
Step 1: Find what you need
- Gather your supplies and materials.
Step 2: Cut out the bookmark base
- Draw a 6 inch by 1.5 inch rectangle on a piece of paper or cardstock. (Or whatever size you'd like your bookmark to be)
- Cut out the rectangle.
- Place the rectangle on top of the transparency film. Carefully hold the rectangle in place and cut around it to make the transparent bookmark.
Step 3: Add Mod Podge and pressed flowers
- Working in 2 inch sections, brush a thin layer of Mod Podge onto the transparency film rectangle.
- Place pressed flowers and dried greenery onto the Mod Podge.
- Apply another thin layer of Mod Podge over top of the flowers.
- Continue this pattern, placing flowers until the whole bookmark is covered.
- Now seal the whole bookmark by brushing another thin layer of Mod Podge over the entire rectangle.Wait 30 minutes, and brush a second coat of Mod Podge onto the bookmark. Wait another 30 minutes, and add a third coat.
Step 4: Tie a ribbon to the bookmark
- Once the bookmark is dry (about 1 to 1.5 hours), use a single hole punch to punch a hole in the top center of the bookmark.
- Cut a 5 inch piece of thin ribbon.
- Feed the ribbon through the hole and tie a knot in it close to the bookmark.
- Your pressed flower bookmark is complete!
Helpful Tips:
- Tweezers work well to place the more delicate flowers. You can also move the flowers by sticking them to your Mod Podge covered paintbrush.
- It can be helpful to arrange the flowers before gluing them down. This allows you to design the bookmark exactly how you’d like!
Where can I get pressed flowers?
You can use flowers that you’ve pressed yourself, or you can buy pressed flowers on Amazon or Etsy.
To press your own flowers, sandwich the fresh blooms between newsprint or parchment paper. Then place them between the pages of a heavy, hardcover book. Finally, add more weight on top of the book (several more heavy books, for example) and leave the blooms for 1 – 2 weeks until the moisture is removed and the petals are tissue paper thin.
What type of flowers work best for a pressed flower bookmark?
You’ll want to consider size, shape, and colour when choosing the flowers for your bookmark. We made our bookmarks 1.5 inches wide, so you’ll need to make sure the largest flowers aren’t much more than 1-1/4 inches in size.
The best flowers and greenery to press are ones that are naturally flat, with single layers of petals. Try using violets, baby’s breath, hydrangeas, Queen Anne’s lace, fern leaves, buttercups, lavender, cosmos, pansies, and daisies.
Finally, choose flowers that work with your chosen colour palette! We made one pink bookmark, one purple, and one with red and orange flowers.
What can I use for the base of the pressed flower bookmark?
We made our bookmarks with transparency film, the kind used for old school overhead projectors. It’s a flexible material, but it makes for a strong bookmark once the flowers and Mod Podge are added!
For another see-through option, cut a bookmark shape out of shrinky dink film or a plastic take-out container (make sure to watch for sharp edges!). You could also make a clear bookmark by sandwiching the flowers between two layers of contact paper, no Mod Podge needed.
And if you don’t want a transparent bookmark, you can add your pressed flowers to watercolour paper or thick cardstock — something that won’t curl as the Mod Podge dries.
How long do pressed flowers last?
Properly dried flowers should last for years, and even decades, without fading, especially if they’re kept out of direct sunlight. The Mod Podge used in these bookmarks also helps to make the flowers last.
Is Mod Podge good for pressed flowers?
Mod Podge works perfectly for preserving dried flowers! It’s a glue and sealer that will stop any moisture from getting in, and will keep the flowers from crumbling.
We had such a fun time making this craft that celebrates a love of reading and the beauty of nature! And we love that these pressed flower bookmarks are nice and thin, so they’ll stay perfectly in place in our books!
Here’s even more easy craft ideas:
Our book Low-Mess Crafts for Kids is loaded with 72 fun and simple craft ideas for kids! The projects are fun, easy and most importantly low-mess, so the clean up is simple!
Where to buy:
You can purchase Low-Mess Crafts for Kids from Amazon, or wherever books are sold:
Amazon |  Barnes and Noble |  Books- A- Million |  Indiebound |  Indigo |  Amazon Canada
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