PRESSED FLOWER TUTORIAL WITH SILVESTRE WORKSHOP

Pressing flowers began in the West in the late 16th century, after trade opened up with Japan. There, Oshibana, the art of arranging flattened dried flowers into ornate compositions on paper, had been part of the culture for centuries. Over time, the technique made its way to the West, where people began scrapbooking botanicals they collected at home or on vacation. Later, during World War I, pressing evolved into something more poignant: soldiers would gather wildflowers from the trenches and send them home inside “forget-me-not” letters to their families.

Taller Silvestre has recovered this beautiful art, bringing romanticism back to the process and inviting us to find moments to reflect on the care of what surrounds us. With the idea of ​​having moments for ourselves again and recovering our contact with nature, we proposed to Alina and Verónica that they reconnect us with traditions, essence and the earth. It was then that they proposed a small tutorial to make a press with something that all of you have: a Naguisa box.

“The art of pressing flowers, leaves and plants provides many hours of enjoyment throughout the process. The trips to the fields to collect, the care required to press, the joy of opening the press to see the results, sorting them… The whole process is designed to engage the senses and becomes a delight. It provides us with many moments of calm, beauty and enjoyment.”

As the main tool of their work at Taller Silvestre, Alina and Verónica use a press to extract the moisture from the flowers, made from local materials such as poplar wood, a typical wood from the Rioja area of ​​the Najerilla river basin. But sometimes, when they are travelling or run out of pressing surface, they use creativity to develop new presses with materials they have at hand, such as, for example: boxes, magazines, books, ropes...

In this case, the material they used to develop the press was a Naguisa box and some tapes to close it. By dismantling the box and cutting several rectangles to use as lids and bases for the press, the two created a simple, practical press that was easy to transport.

The tools needed to press flowers are very simple and easy to get and you probably have almost everything at home.

The materials used for the press were:

Cardboard, blotting paper and rubber bands or tape to close it.

Also, with another box, Alina and Veronica made a box to preserve the flowers once they were pressed.

“In addition, shoe boxes are a perfect solution for storing them, as they are a breathable material that allows us to create floors to create various heights and be able to store them horizontally.”