 Hey everybody, welcome to DIY Botanical Art. My name is Sheridan, I work here at the Long Beach Public Library and today I'm going to show you how to make this pretty cool, kind of cute botanical art from really simple things. Pressed flowers, a picture frame that I got at Target, and a piece of paper, and maybe a little watercolor if you're feeling that too, okay? So it's pretty cheap, it's really easy to do, and once you have that flowers pressed, it takes all of 25 minutes to put that together, okay? So get a little closer, we'll talk about how I did it, I'll show you what to do, and we'll even talk about everything that you're going to need. Okay, so here's what you're going to need to be able to make this pretty cool picture frame situation. You can see that I've got just a basic frame, I threw a little watercolor in there just to pick up some of the blue and the purples from the flower, and then just a pressed flower. So I'll show you what it is that we're going to do. First off and foremost, you're going to need some pressed flowers, so what I did was I actually just drove around town and spotted some flowers that I liked, off the side of the road, over at the bluff, the bluff along ocean, along Broadway, a couple of different little places, and I just kind of brought some scissors with me and I clipped them. So I got a few different kinds of flowers, you can see here that I've got several different kinds. I've got these that are a little bit more, you know, like, kind of like daisies, I've got these that were poppies, or that are poppies. These are very delicate though, so they start to fall apart a little bit easy. You can see that I've got some flowers here, and then I've got some petals there that fell off some of the poppies. I've also got some of these bluish ones, I wish I knew what they were called, but I am not that smart, so, you know, bluish and kind of pinkish, but they're, these actually pressed really nicely because the bulb kept all the petals upward, so you can still see that shape, that very floral shape. This is another poppy. This was kind of like one of those flowers that's a little bit of like a, it looks like a thistle almost, I don't know, but this one actually turned out really well. You can definitely see the silhouette of the flower. You just can't really see the color of the individual little blossoms, they were kind of like a peachish. And then these daisies actually did not press very well at all because the bulb, the head of the flower was really thick, and it's really hard to press kind of thick items like that, so you can see that they kind of look like, I don't even know, you know, they just don't look that great. So these I'm not going to use. A tip if you're going to drive around and pick flowers is to pick a few more than you think you're going to need because, like I said, sometimes they don't turn out that great, and so if you just drive around and pick exactly what it is that you think you're going to need, you press them and then a week later you find out that they're not going to work, you've set yourself up by a week, especially if you're going to give this as a gift. Take a little form, take a little bit more than you need, obviously forage responsibly, you don't want to go into people's backyards or anything, or take more than you're going to need, but just take, you know, three or four more flowers than you think you're going to use so that you have some options later on. So these daisies we're not going to use, we're going to stick to these here, and then what I think I'm going to do is actually select these and maybe the poppies. So these we'll use for another day, or another, you know, place or whatever, another frame. So how do you press flowers? So basically what you want to do is you want to pick blossoms that are not super, super thick, are colorful if it is that you want color, and then what you do is you actually take a book. So what I did was that I took one of my old college textbooks about culture and history of Latin America, and I put the flowers, I laid the flowers down on the inside, you can see that there's still one in here. I kind of arranged them carefully so that they weren't overlapping with each other, each one should have its own little, you know, little space to be able to get pressed down. And then what I did was I actually took this and I pressed, you know, I laid the flowers down and I closed the book. I actually did a few different types, different flowers in this same book, and then what I did was I laid a bunch of books on top of this book so that it would have a lot of weight on top to really start crushing the flowers and making them flat. I left this in a place where nobody would bother it for about a couple of weeks, yeah, and then I took the books off, opened it up, and the flowers were pressed, they were flat, and they were ready to be framed. So you can see here that this one is really nice and flat. Once you turn it to its side, you can barely see it. It's kind of like, you see that? You can barely see it. That's how flat it got, and it works really well because you can see the different color, kind of yellowish of the blossom. You can see the leaves, you can see the stems. It just looks really good. So poppies are really good for this, but, you know, maybe you've come across some flowers that are all, that are even better for it. It's up to you. So that's kind of how you press some flowers. You don't want to leave them in a super hot place because the heat starts to degrade the colors of the blossoms. So, you know, make sure that they're in a cool place. Make sure that there's books on top, a lot of pressure, and that nobody's going to bother them and keep opening them up to check out what's inside. So now I've got these blossoms here that are ready to be framed. So what am I going to do next? I need a picture frame. So, I bought this frame at Target. I think it was like $3, but I'm sure that they sell them too at like the dollar store or whatever. So let's open this bad boy up, and we can start getting these flowers on the inside. So it comes with the backing part that has the, you know, the supports. It comes with a piece of glass and one of these little kind of like filler, you know, photos or whatever. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take a little bit of cardstock, which I got here from the library, and I'm going to cut this down to size so that it can fit in the frame. This is a five by seven frame, but I'm not going to do any measuring with rulers or any of that kind of stuff. Why make my life any harder than it already is. I'm just going to cut along the edge of this with a pair of scissors to cut it down to size. And then I know for a fact that it's going to fit in the frame perfectly. So I'll put the extra paper aside. I've got this little piece of paper that's going to fit in my frame very well. And this is what I'm going to mount the flowers to. Then I'm going to put everything together in the frame. So I'm going to put the frame aside for now because we don't need it just yet. So you'll see that in the one that I made earlier, I added a tiny bit of watercolor down here to just kind of pick up the blues and the purples from that flower. You can do that if you'd want to. The only thing I would recommend is that if you do use watercolor, I just use some watercolor here. If you do use watercolor to wait for the watercolor to dry completely before actually framing it. So this watercolor, I just did it really quickly this morning. So it's still a little bit wet. I wouldn't recommend that because once you have moisture in the frame, you may end up with a mold, which you want to avoid because then it's going to start to eat up the flowers and then you're going to end up with, you know, it's pointless to frame something that's going to be, you know, all moldy and stuff in a couple of months. So wait for it to dry completely and then mount your flowers. OK, you can even get super creative. I'm just using white paper, but you can use tan paper. You can use like handmade paper that's got texture and different flecks. Really, whatever you want, you can use craft paper, whatever thing, whatever, you know, fits in your aesthetic. Feel free to use it as a backing for the flowers because it's going to be something that you decorate your space with or that you give away to friends or family or whatever. So this is just white cardstock, a little bit of watercolor. For this one, I'm not going to do any watercolor because we just don't have the time, but I'll show you how to mount. So to mount these, you're going to need some Mod Podge. I've just got this container here. I'm going to use a little brush just to brush onto the flowers. You don't need a ton of ton of Mod Podge. You really just need a tiny, tiny bit. So I've got some Mod Podge there. I'm going to use this. I always try to keep a little bit of water around when there's Mod Podge in case I want to wash the brush off or anything like that. But we're pretty much ready to go. So let's do it. I think what I'm going to do is actually choose this blossom here. And I'm going to paint a little bit of Mod Podge onto the back. You don't need a ton of Mod Podge for this because you're not trying to seal anything per se. You're really just trying to get it to stick to the paper. And I'm going to try to place it somewhere in the frame where I know I'm going to want it. And then just kind of apply a little pressure to stick it down. And then you should be good to go. You can see here that the stem of this is actually going below the frame, which is not going to be good for what we need it, right? So you want to take a little pair of scissors and trim it off. You don't want to do a trim that's perpendicular or straight to the stem because it's going to look, it just doesn't look that great. So you want to trim it in a way that it looks a little bit more natural at an angle. And then that way it looks like the stem kind of ends, you know, a little bit of pointiness on its own there. You can put that flower trimming aside. And you should be good to go. Next up, let's see, what I'm going to do is, oh, actually, I'm going to add a little bit of Mod Podge to the stem itself. So for this, I'm going to hold this in place and just add a little bit of Mod Podge underneath the stem to hold that in place too. You can see I'm just kind of holding in the bulb in place and I'm just brushing a tiny bit of Mod Podge onto the bottom of the stem just to kind of glue it down a little bit. And then I'm just going to run my finger along there. There we go. We're good to go. So that one's in place. I think next what I'm going to do is this kind of pinkish one. And so the same thing, you kind of want to plan for where the blossom is going to land. This one, I think I want it to be a little shorter than this. So I'm actually going to cut before I glue just, you know, a little foresight there at an angle. And there we have it. All right, so now that I know where I want it, I'm going to add a little bit of Mod Podge to the back here. I may want to move some of these petals out of the way and then just a tiny bit of Mod Podge there. Like I said, you're not trying to seal it or anything. You just want it to glue a little bit in place. So you just need a tiny bit. Put it down. Press it a little bit. And there it is. So now that I have the bulb in place, I'm going to bend the paper a little bit and glue the stem like that. Then press the stem down a tiny bit. And there it is. That one's in place too. OK, so I've got this blue flower, this pinkish flower. I think it's time for a poppy. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this little poppy here and I'm probably going to put it maybe like right there. What do you think? Maybe on the other side. Put one in there in the middle. Take your time when doing this too because you really want to position the flowers in a way that's pleasing to you. You don't want to have this thing that's all like, you know. You want to make it so that it looks kind of cute, I guess. Maybe I'll do this one like this. So I'm going to cut off the stem a tiny bit. Poppies are a little bit difficult because they're pretty much all petal. So when you Mod Podge the back of a poppy, be kind of careful because you don't want to put a bunch of Mod Podge on the petal because it may show through even though Mod Podge dries clear. Okey-dokey. And just a little bit of Mod Podge on the stem here. Press it down. And there we go. You should be good to go. OK. So I think we have room for a couple more flowers. I think what I'm going to do is try to get, what do you think, maybe that poppy there? No. Maybe what I'll do is cut this poppy off. You can actually split up your flowers too. Even after you press them, like, you know, if you don't want that section, don't put it in. Put that poppy right there. Actually, I think that'll look good. So just a tiny bit of Mod Podge. I'm going to overlap these two to make them look a little bit more, I don't know, I guess, natural. Hold that in place, a little bit of Mod Podge on the stem. Want to move the stem over a tiny bit. Well, maybe that's where it's going to stay. That's OK. All right. So I think I want to do one last little flower here. Or maybe not. Maybe that's all we have room for here. I may do just a tiny bit of green, like foliage, right? Just to, I don't know, maybe accent these two a little bit more. We may be out of room for flowers. But you can definitely still add, you know, if you have leaves and stuff like this left over, you can definitely put it in there. It gives it a little bit more green, a little bit more of like a floral, herbal kind of vibe, I guess. And just a little bit of Mod Podge on one side of it. I'm going to see if I can find some poppy leaves, too, to do the same thing with. Or maybe even, do you see that little pod right there? I'm not sure what that is. But I'm going to add that in there, too, just to give it a feeling of, you know. So this pod is actually a little bit thicker than a flower would be, but that's OK. Because there is a little bit of wiggle room within the frame. Then just glue that down, where you think it'll go well. If you happen to break a leaf, like I just did right now, take it out, because then it's going to fall. It could fall to the bottom of the frame. And then you're going to have this random piece hanging out down there. This pod is a little trouble. So I think I'm pretty much done with this one. I want to wait for this to dry, the Mod Podge to dry completely. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to put it together with the frame. Well, actually, I'm not going to wait for it to dry. I'm going to put it together right now. But you want to wait for it to dry completely before you actually frame it up and assemble everything. So I'm going to put aside the flowers that I don't need. I'm going to put aside the Mod Podge and the brush. And now that I've got this, what I'm going to do is lay this on the backing. I'm going to very carefully lay down the glass to capture everything, to trap it. And then I'm going to flip the whole thing over and put it inside of the frame. I need to work it in there a little bit, press it down. But there you have it, a little framed flower art. You can see here that I didn't plan ahead. And some of this foliage here is getting cut off by the actual frame itself. So try to think about that. Try to think about where the frame is going to land on the white piece of paper, because it can be a little deceptive. But this is pretty chill. I mean, it's a cute, simple way to decorate a space with a little bit of nature, a little bit of color. And something that you made yourself for like four bucks, which is not too shabby. So yeah, there we have it, some framed botanical art. You can put it on the wall, you can put it on your dresser, your side table, give it away. Pretty cool, huh? All right, y'all, so that's pretty much it. You can see that I've got two pieces of botanical art that I made myself. I've got this larger thing with a little bit of watercolor touch. I've got this smaller one. Yeah, if you wanted to set up a feel to it, you could even turn this on its side and do more of a landscape kind of deal. But it's pretty easy to do, pretty cheap to make if you already have the Mod Podge. Just pick a few flowers, buy a couple of cheap dollar store frames, some nice paper. And boom, you got presents for the whole family, for Christmas, or for Hanukkah, or for any other gift-giving type of deal, you know what I mean, or birthdays. So yeah, that's it, DIY botanical art. Thanks for joining us today. If you haven't signed up for summer reading just yet, be sure to do so by visiting longbeach.beanstack.org. And then also enter the code rainbow into the Beanstack Activity tab so that you can get a point for watching and crafting with us today. OK, take care. Bye.