This might be one of my favorite wedding DIYs ever. Pressed flower placemats bring a floral element to your table in an unexpected place. Instead of having a centerpiece full of fresh blooms, some DIY magic will make a beautiful, modern pressed flower placemat to liven up the placesettings. Keep in mind that pressing flowers takes about three weeks. Build in that time (and a place in your home to press them) when you plan all of your wedding DIY projects. Now, let’s get to the project:
Cut off all of the flower heads very close to the bottom of the petals.
Layout your newsprint. Place the flowers cut side down on the newsprint. Lay another layer of newsprint on top of the flowers. Now comes the pressing part! Gather a lot of heavy books and place them on top of the newsprint. The flowers are going to stay under the books (or heavy boxes) for 2-3 weeks. Every week, check the flowers. They should be super flat and slightly dried out.
Lift up the newsprint to see your beautifully pressed flowers. Yes, my pressed flowers are slightly different then the process images because I pressed these three weeks before shooting the supplies photo.
Lay your pressed flowers face side down onto one of the clear dry erase boards. As you probably figured out, we aren’t using the boards to write messages on. ?
Place a dab of mod podge on the back of each flower.
Put another clear board on top of the flowers. Place a few heavy book on this for an hour or two until the glue dries.
The pressed flower placemats will look most dramatic on a solid colored linen. Here I chose a white linen with a little texture to soften up the edges of the dry erase boards. Work with your caterer to figure out if plates need to be pre-set on each place setting. Depending on your menu and type of food service, the place settings will or won’t have be pre-set with a plate.