Dried & Pressed Hydrangea Flower Wall Frames

Bring Nature Indoors

Here at Freckled Californian, it’s all about a lifestyle inspired by the garden. I’m so excited to share my very first craft project for your home! From garden to home, these frames are a fun way to preserve and cherish those blooms that grace the garden. The best part? This project is completely customizeable. You can choose whatever background color, frame, flowers, and layout that works for your home.

Without further ado, let me invite you to my bathroom. This bathroom was completely remodeled last year. The slider below shows a little Before & After. There are still some design aspects missing, but I knew I wanted some botanical art above the sink—so I made my own! You can check out the tutorial below.

Supplies Needed:

A selection of flowers for drying (hydrangea used here, but pansies, cosmos, borage, or lavender would be great).

A book, plus more books for weighing down

Paper towels for pressing

Picture frame(s) of choice (I got mine from the dollar store)

Background cardstock or fabric. Whatever color you desire. I chose a textured burlap sheet like this one from Michael’s. It is actually very stiff fabric, and I liked the texture it adds.

Craft glue (also available on Amazon)

Paintbrush

A Pencil for marking

Scissors

Tweezers (optional, but can be useful for grabbing smaller, delicate flowers)

***If you shop at Michael’s don’t forget to always search online for coupons! I often find coupons for 40% off single items.

Choose Your Blooms

You can use a variety of blooms for this project. Pansies, yarrow, lavender, cosmos—-the sky’s the limit. You can find an archive of my flower growing articles HERE.

Flowers with thick stems or centers, like dahlias or peonies, won’t dry well for this because of their thickness and moisture, so keep that in mind when choosing blooms.

If you are using hydrangeas (like me) the heads themselves can be too big for this project. You can simply breakdown the heads into smaller sections using scissors. I even clipped off some single little flowers to dry.

How to Dry and Press Your Flowers

Take your blooms and lay them onto a sheet of paper towel in between book pages. 

Place another sheet of paper towel on top and close the book carefully!

TIP: You can pre-flatten your blooms a little bit with your hand before placing in the book. I do this to help the petals stay in the arrangement I want. 

Place another heavy book (or books) on top to provide a little more weight for pressing. 

Wait about a week, and check on your blooms. Continue to do this until they are completely dry. 

They are finished and ready for projects once they have completely dried. You don’t want any moisture left in them because they can mold or mildew. 

Disassemble Your Frames

Remove the backing on your frame and check out how it is assembled. My frame set came with a glass pane in front, a matte board, another cardboard piece, and then the backing. Each frame set can be different.

Take your matte board and lay it on your piece of cardstock. Make note of positioning. If you are making more than one frame, try and get as many pieces as you can out of the cardstock.

Trace around the outside of the matte board with a pencil. In other words, make your cardstock piece the same size as the matte board, because we will glue them together in the end. I’ve found the project comes out looking more polished when I glue my cardstock to the matte board.*if your frame didn’t come with a matte board, your cardstock should be the same size as your frame backing. 

Cut your cardstock out with scissors per your tracing lines.

Glue Your Flowers In place

This is the fun part!

Glue your flowers to the cardstock! TIP: remember to keep the flowers away from the edge because the matte board will take up space on the finished product. 

Take your craft glue and paintbrush (I put a little bit of glue on a spare piece of paper so I could just dip my brush in it) and gently apply glue to the back of your flowers.

Sometimes, for singular little flowers, I put a dab of glue on the cardstock instead and press the flower down.

Once you have glued down all your flowers, go around and double check for any petals that aren’t sticking down. TIP: the overall project will look cleaner if all edges are glued down. Also, don’t worry about getting glue in the wrong places because it dries clear! You won’t even notice 🙂

Let your flower design dry.

Glue your cardstock to the matte board: do this by placing your matte board into the frame as if you are going to assemble it (so face down), and brush glue all around the edge. Take your cardstock with your floral design and lay it onto the matte board as if you were assembling it (so face down). * you can skip this step if your frame didn’t come with a matte board.

Press down with your fingers to secure the cardstock to the matte board.

Let it sit and dry.

Now you can add and secure the backing of the frame and you’re done!

Before you go!

I hope you enjoyed this first home project. I love being able to find new ways to bring the garden into other areas of my life. Maybe one day I’ll make some frames with some brighter, more colorful blooms, but I really wanted this project to go with all the neutral, soft tones of the bathroom.

If you love making art with flowers, I highly recommend Growing Everlasting Flowers for a gorgeous selection of flowers that don’t lose their color when they dry. The flowers/pods in the vase pictured below are part of the everlasting family of plants 😉

I hope you take some time to make some floral art of your own!

Other articles you might enjoy:

DIY Fresh Homemade Wreath Tutorial

How to Grow Sunflowers ~ Sow, Grow, and Save Seed

Garden DIY Projects Using Pruned Branches & Sticks

Make Your Own Pasta From Scratch-It’s Easy!