Dried flower book marks

So during graduation my boyfriend gave me a big, fancy bouquet. It was really nice and thoughtful (and sneaky) of him to do that. Anyways, I wanted to save some of the flowers so I decided to try and dry them. 

big fancy bouquet

I used the book method where you place the flowers of choice in between the pages of a large book. It worked out well for the most part. The stems weren't as squished as I had hope but it wasn't bad for a first time. I then proceeded to the bookmark making! 

The things that I used were:

Printing paper

glossy laminate sheets (no heat needed)

scissors

dried flowers

I trimmed some of the flowers and stems. Then I arranged some flowers on the surface of printing paper and placed half of a laminate sheet on top of the paper and flowers. I flipped the paper and placed another laminate sheet behind it. Lastly, I cut everything to the size that I wanted. Next time I should look for some card stock to match the flowers instead of using plain white paper. 

The other book mark I made without the printer paper. I peeled the laminate sheet off of its liner then placed it on the table with the sticky side facing up. I then placed the flowers where I wanted them to be.  It can be hard to peel the flowers off if you make a mistake while placing them on the laminate. I recommend arranging the flowers to your liking before you place them on the laminate. Once you have everything stuck on flat you can take a second sheet of laminate and carefully place it on top of the laminate and flowers. Sticky sides should be facing each other. It is much easier to see air bubbles for this bookmark so go slow. It is easier to have the second piece bigger than the size that you want and then trim once you are done. 

pretty blue flower bookmarks!

I don't think I let the flowers dry long enough because the stems weren't completely flat. This didn't allow everything to lay completely flat and as a result there was a lot of air trapped around the flowers. The flowers that were exposed to air began to rot. As you can see below my flowers started to turn brown after a week. =[

sad brown dying flowers

It was a nice try.