How to preserve Valentine's day flowers

My boyfriend bought me a huge bouquet of flowers on Valentine's day & (few days before Vday) he gave me a quiz like - what kind of flowers best represent me (that's so obvious right?)

Thank you for the flower, Florina Florist!

The first thing that came up to my mind when I  first got it was... what am I going to do with it? I know they won't last very long as some of the petals started to fall off and dried by night time. So, I turned them into a mini project of mine and making pressed flowers out of it.

I used to make pressed flowers before, but never in this large quantity, mostly just leaves and wild flowers that I found around my parents's home.

Let me show you how I made pressed flowers out of my Vday flower bouquet.

Firstly, you need to separate the flowers & wipe off excess water. Cut the stem, then just carefully laid the flowers facing downward on a piece of paper and placed it between the pages of the book.

Putting old art books to good use.

Or you can cut it into smaller stems and laid it on the paper (the paper helps to absorb the excess water from the flowers and prevent from staining the pages of the book).

Or you can just air dry them by hanging them upside down. I love this method as it makes my room smells good, but eventually the smells will be gone and you can just spray some of your favorite perfume on it, and it's even better!

I took them out a few days later... I know some of them haven't really dried out, but I can't help but to decorate them inside the picture frame.

Then I continued to dry and press them between the pages of my (super heavy & thick) art books for few more weeks. I'll show you the end result soon.