Pressed Flowers

Well today I bought a Kirstie Allsopp Flower Press Kit. As child I used to love pressing wild flowers. I didn't have a fancy kit, instead I used the heaviest books in the house piled on to of one another. So apart from the fact it's years since I have done this, I have never used a kit.

Inside the kit:
.
The Flower Press
It's all buckles and braces, not sure I expected this...I thought it would have four holes in each corner with large screws and wing nuts. so this could be interesting.

Also included are:
Blotting Paper and Corrugated Card
Card Blanks and Envelopes, Book Blanks and Tags...........nice
Self Adhesive Covering Film........haven't go a clue what this is for yet!

You may also Need:
The kit recommends you have your own tweezers, adhesive, 3D clear gloss (new to me), newspaper and varnish.

Let's get started

Blotting Paper on one side of cardboard

The instructions seem quite clear, only one little point to start off. The blotting paper and the cardboard are one in the same I think, although the instructions refer to them as being separate. From what I can gather the blotting side is on one side of the cardboard. Also you need to have newspaper cut to the same size as the flower press, not mentioned above, 'you may also need'

The first problem I had was finding wild flowers in January, nothing to do with the kit, just the time of year. So I have resorted to the supermarket to see what they had, tulips, carnations, roses, in the end I opted for Gypsophila and a 'type of fern'

The instructions state to put cardboard then newspaper then blotting paper, I am assuming that somewhere in between I put my 'flowers' I have decided to put flowers immediately after newspaper, followed with blotting paper.

I found the buckles and straps quite fiddly, you need to adjust them depending on the layers and they were not the easiest to tighten. I also want to put more layers on tomorrow after I have located more flowers, so not sure how this is going to work out.