A Free Guide · Hattie Lou Blooms
Press Your Own Wedding Flowers
A step-by-step field guide to help you preserve your bouquet, boutonniere, or memorial flowers at home — with the exact frames, papers, glues, and tools we reach for in our own studio.
Rather have us do it? See our preservation services
Frames
Once your flowers are fully pressed and dried, you'll want a frame that actually does them justice. Double-glass floating frames are a great choice — the style lets light pass through both sides so your pressed flowers look like they're suspended rather than stuck behind glass. Below are a few size options in different finishes so you can match your space.
Double-glass floating frames
- 6x8 — gunmetal black, antique bronze, gold
- 8x10 — gunmetal black, antique bronze, gold
- 10x8 — gunmetal black, antique bronze, gold
- 11x14 — gunmetal black, antique bronze, gold
Got thicker flowers?
For blooms with more depth, a glass-and-plexiglass frame is a better fit — one side is real glass, the other is plexiglass, and that slight flex in the plexiglass gives thicker pressed flowers the room they need to sit properly. The tradeoff: plexiglass scratches much more easily than glass, so you'll want to be gentle with it and avoid harsh cleaning products — a soft microfiber cloth and mild soap and water is the safer bet. (See the Glass Cleaner section below for more on this.)
Metallic tones
- 8x10 — black, gold, silver, bronze, green, rose gold
- 11x14 — black, gold, silver, bronze, green, rose gold
Wood tones
Paper Products
Between every layer of flowers in your press, you need something to absorb moisture and add even pressure as they dry. This usually comes in two parts: a blotting/chipboard layer, and the paper that directly touches your flowers.
Blotting boards
Skip traditional corrugated cardboard if you can — the ridges can actually imprint lines onto delicate petals as they press. These smooth blotting boards avoid that problem entirely, and they're sized to fit two 8.5x11 sheets side by side, giving you a lot more pressing space per layer than a standard single-sheet setup.
Paper (the layer touching your flowers)
Plain copy paper works well as your everyday base layer — use about 5 sheets on both sides of the flowers, between the chipboard. That's usually all you need.
If your flowers are on the thicker side, add a layer of blotting paper in with the copy paper — it pulls extra moisture out more efficiently, which helps thicker blooms dry evenly instead of staying damp longer than the rest of the layers.
Glue
Best for keepsakes
Acid-free (archival)
The right choice if you want your pressed flowers to last for years without yellowing or degrading. It sets slower, so you'll need to hold the flower in place for a few minutes while it gets tacky. Worth the extra patience for something like a wedding bouquet.
Best for practice
Quick-stick
Sets fast and is easy to work with, but it's not acid-free, so it's better suited for practice pieces or shorter-term display rather than something you want to preserve long-term.
Tweezers & Placement Tools
Precise tools make a real difference once you're arranging dried petals and adding glue — this isn't a step where you want to be using your fingers.
Precision tweezers
Great for moving flowers into position and lifting edges to slide glue underneath.
Tweezers / scraping tool
Also good for lifting edges to add glue, plus doubles as a way to scrape off small excess bits of glue where it's not wanted.
Prefer to hand it off?
We'll press them for you.
If pressing your own feels like more than you have time for, we ship preservation kits nationwide and handle everything from the press to the final frame.
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