Make Your Own Pressed Flower Jewelry Box

Would you agree that there is something enchanting about pressed flowers? They dazzle the eye with vibrant color and exquisite detail, all the while evoking gentle feelings of nostalgia. Perhaps best of all, pressed flowers cost nothing.

Preserve Your Favorite Spring Flowers by Pressing Them

Do you love flowers? Do you hate to see things go to waste? Are you great at crafting and making things beautiful? If so, our pressed flower jewelry box project is for you. It is the perfect Springtime craft, and also makes a thoughtful gift.

Before you begin making your jewelry box, gather the needed materials:

• Small wooden box
• 2 pieces of white paper
• Acrylic paint (your choice of color)
• Small paintbrush
• Elmer’s glue
• Several blooms of your favorite Spring flower (small blooms work best)
• Krylon anti-UV clear acrylic sealer (comes in a spray can)
• A hardback book

Altogether, these materials should be very inexpensive.

Directions for Making Your Pressed Flower Jewelry Box

Once you have gathered your materials, you are ready to get started making your pressed flower jewelry box. Follow these directions to get a beautiful result:

• Carefully place your live flower blooms onto one piece of white paper; do not let the blooms overlap. Open your hardback book and place the white sheet loaded with blooms into it. Cover the blooms with the other sheet of white paper and close the book firmly. Now comes the hard part: leave the book alone for at least a week; this is how long it takes for the flowers to become thoroughly pressed and dried.

• In the days you are waiting for your flowers to dry, paint your wooden box with the acrylic paint you chose. You may need to apply 2 coats of paint. White is the perfect showcase color for your vibrant pressed flowers. Allow box to dry totally.

• After the week long period, open the hardback book and carefully remove the dried flowers with tweezers. They will be as thin as tissue paper, so be very gentle.

• Using tweezers, arrange the pressed flowers into a design of your choice on top of the box. Be as creative as you desire. Remember, this is your creation!

• After your flowers are arranged atop the box, carefully lift each dried bloom and dot tiny amounts of school glue (use a toothpick to do this) on the backside of the flowers. Then, lay the flowers on the box and gently press down on them. Do this until all your dried flowers are glued in place. Let arrangement dry.

• The last step is to spray your completely dry craft with Krylon clear acrylic sealer. Be sure that the top of your jewelry box is open when you do this; otherwise, the spray will glue the box’s lid shut. You may want to spray another coat of sealer after the first coat is dry. Allow box to dry. Your Springtime pressed flower jewelry box is now finished and ready to be enjoyed!

We would love to see your finished product. Please share a photo of your Springtime craft with us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/segmation).

Is there a specific craft you love to make that uses pressed flowers? Please share with us in the comments section below.

Read more Segmation blog posts about art and color:

Paint by Number – The Original DIY Project

Colorful Flowers to Plant this Spring

Easy Ways to Prepare Your Home for Spring

Be an Artist in 2 minutes with Segmation SegPlay® PC (see more details here)

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Ideas for Creating Halloween Spirit

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Every October, as fallen leaves carpet the ground with brilliant shades of brown, yellow, red and orange, a variety of strange and spooky images start to appear creating Halloween Spirit. Ghosts and ghouls hang from trees, carved pumpkins and gnarled broomsticks appear on doorsteps, spiders weave webs across windows and gravestones turn up on front lawns.

Halloween art sets the stage for the scariest holiday of the year. Well before October 31 rolls around, you’ll want to get busy creating the seasonal decorations that will set the tone for the entire month.

The most common images in Halloween art include:

• ghosts and haunted houses
• witches, broomsticks and cauldrons
• pumpkins and jack o’lanterns
• spiders and cobwebs
• monsters
• werewolves
• vampires and bats
• skulls and skeletons
• gravestones

Both adults and children alike enjoy creating Halloween arts and crafts that bring these strange and macabre images to life. Here are some hands-on ideas for Halloween arts and crafts:

• Color in Halloween images with markers, crayons, paint, or even digitally using your computer
• Cut outlines of spiders, bats, and witches’ hats out of black paper
• Cut out body parts from magazines and paste them on thick paper to make your own monsters
• Create your own gravestone using black marker on grey paper
• Draw a pair of eyes and a wide, smiling mouth full of teeth on a pumpkin, and carve it out to create a jack o’lantern

To get in the holiday spirit, hang your 2-D Halloween arts and crafts in your front windows or on your front door. Place your 3-D Halloween art projects on your doorstep or front lawn.
The most exciting form of “Halloween art” is your costume!

Whether you are a 7 years old or 77 years old, on October 31 you can transform yourself into someone (or something) else. This is where your imagination has free reign – you can change your appearance however you want by wearing a costume, a wig, and/or make-up. Whether you are the one trick-or-treating or the one answering the door with a bowl of candy, Halloween is a holiday full of surprises, where nothing is quite what it seems.

Read more Segmation blog posts about Art:

Art Therapy Treats more than the Heart

How to turn your Passion into Profit

Art Beneath Your Feet

Be a Artist in 2 minutes with Segmation SegPlay® PC (see more details here)

How did the yellow school bus come about anyways?

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Love it or hate it, yellow is here to stay. The color wheel’s brightest shade can be seen on the road every day. But neither cars nor trucks have the unique yellow paint jobs that belong to school buses. How did the yellow school bus come about anyways? And why are school buses still being painted this shade?

History of the Yellow School Bus

Knowing the colorful history of yellow school buses sheds light on this timeless tradition. The lineage of the school bus dates back to the 1930s when a man by the name of Frank Cyr conducted an in depth study of student transportation vehicles throughout the United States.

At the beginning of his research, Cyr, a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, was observing school buses that cost (on average) $2,000. Quickly he found out that these vehicles had little in common. Various manufacturers, schools, and districts used different buses.

This inspired him to call a conference of educators in spring 1939. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss a standard protocol for school buses. The end result was a 42 page manual that discussed the ins and outs of the school bus. In this manual, the color was declared: national school bus chrome.

National School Bus Yellow

In 2010, the questionable use of “chrome” was exchanged for “yellow”. Still, the color seen on school buses today was the color decided at the conference over seven decades ago. The precise shade of yellow was taken so seriously, that a committee was appointed just to decided which one of 50 shades of yellow would appear on the school bus.

Why has the Color not Changed?

Once national school bus yellow was decided, it became a nationwide mandate. One of the original reasons for the broad directive was because school bus manufacturers “had to have different booths to spray-paint them.” More so, the color became a universal symbol of student transportation.

In fact, most Americans have been raised in environments where yellow school buses shuttle children to and from school. It is hard to imagine life without them.

Source:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/why-are-school-buses-yellow-a-teachers-college-professor-said-so/

If you enjoyed this Segmation blog post, you are sure to love:

– All About Yellow Pigments

https://segmation.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/all-about-yellow-pigments/

– Sunflowers are Summer’s Glory

https://segmation.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/sunflowers-are-summers-glory/

– Art and Science – A Genius Combination

https://segmation.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/paint-by-number-art-and-science-a-genius-combination/

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