DIY Floating Frames with Pressed Flowers
Everyone loves spring and summer in the garden. We can bring in armfuls of fresh brightly-colored blooms for a lovely floral arrangement. Floating frames with pressed flowers are a perfect way to display the bounty of sunny days. Let’s make some art!
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These kinds of DIY projects are so much fun to do by yourself or with your family and friends. These floating frames with pressed flowers would make beautiful gifts for any occasion as well as a lovely addition to any wall in your home.
Supplies You Need for Your DIY Floating Frames with Pressed Flowers
The list isn’t long, but there are a few important items you’ll need on your list to do this project.
- Pressed Flowers/Dried flowers or Silk Flowers
- Hot Glue Gun & Sticks or Super Glue Gel *Optional
- Wooden Picture Frame or any frame with a double pane of glass
- Brass Floating Frames
- Brass Jewelry Chain & Jump Rings
- Mini Screw Eyes
- Aged Copper Spray Paint
- Small Jewelry Pliers & Tweezers *Optional
- Early American Wood Stain *Optional
- Rub n’ Buff Antique Gold Wax *Optional
Watch this on Youtube:
Step One – The Flowers for Your Flower Frame
The first step to creating floating frames with pressed flowers is of course to decide on the flowers for your project. The type of flower, the sizes or variety of sizes, and where to purchase them.
Consider These 3 Things Before You Create Floating Frames with Pressed Flowers
The Type of Flower
If you’re going to use wildflowers the type will depend on what grows wild in your area. Some beautiful options in my area are Queen Anne’s Lace, Aster, Cardinal Flowers, and even Clover.
The Sizes of Pressed Flower
Keep in mind that you want thinner more delicate flowers. Flowers with bulky parts may not dry flat enough to put in a floating frame. Try to pick a variety of smaller flowers and larger flowers, maybe even a few beautiful leaves or ferns.
Where to Purchase Fresh Flowers or Dried Flowers
If you choose to go the already dried route you can find them at a craft store, like Michaels or Hobby Lobby, or at Amazon with free shipping.
For fresh flowers, you can forage for wildflowers, get them from your own garden, or purchase them from a local florist.
There are 5 Different Methods to Press Flowers
If you’re a patient person you can have gorgeous dried flowers in a few weeks. If you aren’t there are some options for quick-dried flowers as well, keep reading!
- Flower Press
- Heavy Books like phone books (finally, a use for them again!)
- DIY Flower Press cardboard, paper, rubber bands, or binder clips for the win!
- Press Flowers with An Iron iron, paper, & a book
- Press Flowers with a Microwave 2 ceramic tiles & rubberbands
Step Two – The Floating Frame
The typical vintage-style floating frames are typically metal frames, but today I’m going to show you how I used some wooden floating frames with double glass frames to create my floating frames with pressed flowers.
The other different frames you could use include
- Double glass frames
- Regular Picture frames with 2 pieces of glass
- Plastic Frames
- Wood Frames
- Any type of Floating Frame or Float Frame
- Window frame with glass panes (adding panes of glass to the backs)
Of course, you can also do these in different sizes as well. Don’t feel boxed in with small wall art. A large gallery wall filled with flower crafts and pressed flower art would look absolutely amazing. You could even include a botanical art piece or two in a floating frame.
Branch out with your choice of glass photo frames and create a unique look for your own home. The beautiful thing about making these yourself is you can happily find frames in a thrift store and repurpose them.
Step Three – DIY Glass Floating Frames
Now comes the most fun part of them all. I love a good DIY project, especially when it means saving myself money. Floating frames can be expensive, but these frames I actually found in the Target Dollar stop for $3.
Create the Vintage Appeal By Adding a Brass Hanging String
To put a vintage spin on these plain wooden floating frames I chose to stain the wood and add the brass chain to hang them.
- Remove the glass panes or acrylic panes in my case.
- Stain the wood with Early American Wood Stain. Let it sit and dry for at least 1 hour.
- Coat the stained wood with a light brushing of Rub n’ Buff Antique Gold wax to seal it.
- Spray paint your Mini Screw Eyes a Brass Color to match the rest of the chain.
- Measure 1/2″ from either side and place your mini screw eyes.
- Cut your jewelry chain to the length that looks right to you. I chose to cut them at about 10″ in length. I measured the width of the frame and multiplied it by 2.
- Open your jump rings and connect the chain to the mini screw eyes.
You can absolutely opt-out of this entire process if you love your floating frame as is. Just ensure your frame has a picture wall mount installed on the back of the frame, many come this way. Or use a picture hanging command strip for a less permanent solution. (Both options can be purchased from a hardware store for your ease!)
Step Four – Create the Pressed Flower Art
You’ve either dried your flowers at this point or chosen to buy them already pressed and dried for you. I love drying flowers but didn’t have any pressed ones ready. So, I opted to purchase from Amazon and I really love the selection that I got.
The good news is this is the easiest part of the process.
- Use tweezers to arrange your flowers.
- Secure them to the glass with a small amount of hot glue or a gel super glue once you’ve figured out your arrangement.
- Hang your beautiful piece of DIY home decor and art on the wall to enjoy!
Hanging Your Floating Frame with Pressed Flowers
I chose to hang mine up for the time being in my hallway. I have this one section of the wall that has been empty for the longest time and I had no idea what to put there. This hallway is rather dark, even though I’ve painted it white to try to curb that.
So these beautiful colorful dried flowers bring a little life to a dark corner of the house.
My style of decorating as far as decor kind of reads as an eclectic scientist or anthropologist. I love nature and I am slightly obsessed with collections of things. This art fits right into my aesthetic.
Where would you hang your pressed flowers? Let me know in the comments!
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Julie
Meet the Author
Hi, I’m Julie! Mother to five beautiful kids, Homeschool Educator, Writer, Handicraft & DIY Enthusiast, Photographer, Thrifter, and Furniture Restorer. Follow along for fun DIY projects creating a handmade home on a budget! Read more about me here→
You are so talented. And I don’t know how you do all the things you do. How do you find the time?
The time that’s hidden in the cracks here and there, honestly. lol I have to intentionally ignore other things. Thank you so much for your encouragement and support, always. I appreciate you, friend.
This looks like such a fun project. I’m sure my grandson would love to make this with me to give to his mother. We’re always making crafts together and he would most certainly get a hoot making this. I’m sure he’d want to put in a twig and rock. LOL
It was a lot of fun and now that I know how easy it is I’m going to do it with my kids, too.
What a simple and lovely DIY!
What a cool idea! I definitely need to try this, it looks beautiful.
Thank you so much!
These are gorgeous!
Thank you!
I love these!
Thank you!
These are so pretty! I’m going to have to try making these soon.
Thank you! I really think you’d love them!
I love this idea! Definitely going to try this next garden season!
Good idea! I definitely wished I had dried more of our flowers.
Julie! Happy New Year!
Loved the pressed flowers! Can you tell me how the method of using ceramic tiles and the microwave works?
Thank you so much!
Cindy
Thank you so much! Happy New Year to you as well. Here are the steps – Step 1. Fold a paper in half and organize the flowers face down on one half of the paper. Carefully fold the other half of the paper over the flowers. Step 2: Next, place paper within a folded paper towel. Step 3: Place into microwave and then put ceramic tiles on top, to weigh down the paper towel and paper. Microwave for anywhere between 30 to 90 seconds, checking every 30 seconds.
Thank you for this post, what a beautiful project. I have a question, you list the metal frames and the wood frames. Did you just use the metal frames to take the chains off of? Also, is it important to use the glue or would the two panes of glass hold the flowers in place? Thank you!
The metal frames are similar to floating frames I purchased from IKEA which already have chains attached. I use them in my dining room and love them. I purchased the chain separately, it’s typically in the jewelry section of a craft store. But you will also need a screw eye to attach the chain to if you’re adding them to the wooden frame. I didn’t use any type of glue to secure my flowers as I like to keep things reusable as much as possible. I just taped around the edges. If you watch the video it shows you exactly how I put them together. Many people do use glue, but obviously, that’s permanent and I may decide to switch it up later on!
So sooo cute! Can you see the glue on the glass once everything dries? I saw someone slather hodge podge all over the flowers and glass…I can only think that it shows up? So pretty though!
I am crazy and personally didn’t actually use any glue! I wanted to be able to redo them later if I didn’t like them. I tried to keep even pressure on the two pieces of glass while putting it in the frame, but you should be able to dab a small bit of glue on the back of them and let it dry. I doubt very highly you’d be able to see it once done as long as you’re using a craft glue that dries clear and is matte. But mine are still perfect and hanging on my wall. The flowers haven’t budged at all.