Pressed Flower Bunny Ears
The earth laughs in flowers.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Image from Gina Vide’s book, ABC FLOWER SAFARI
This Pressed Flower rabbit Ear Project was inspired by my friend Gina Vide of Willow Day. Gina has a new picture book out called ABC Flower Safari that features her gorgeous botanical-animal illustrations. Each letter of the alphabet introduces us to a different animal and flower. In flower Safari land, R is for Rununculus Rabbit. So today, 🐰 RR was our muse.
If you aren’t following Gina on Instagram I highly recommend giving her a follow. She shares wonderful snapshots of her day to day “between the city and the sea” in Sweden. ABC Flower Safari is available for purchase through her Etsy shop.
On the hunt for more spring time/Easter art projects? Check out our Hop Into Spring Bundle, our Hunt Slonem inspired framed Bunny portraits and stacked bunny sculpture, our egg carton bunny ears, and our flowers in clay project!
Materials:
pressed flowers
white poster board
digital images of flowers (optional)
mod podge or white school glue + soft brush
a big thick book
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The first thing you will need for this project is pressed flowers! The simplest, “use what you already have”, tried and true, method for pressing flowers is with a book!
Gather your flowers and leaves; forage in your own back yard or take a trip to your local florist or the flower section at the grocery store.
Place your flowers face down on a piece of parchment paper. Slide the parchment sheet with flowers into a book with a lot of pages (the heavier the better).
Close the book, weigh it down by adding something on top (we usually use book ends or paper weights), and leave the flowers undisturbed for seven to 10 days. When you go to check on your flowers you just want to make sure all the moisture is gone. Your flowers should feel papery.
Or you could use a flower press. The concept is the same as the book - stripping moisture from the flowers by “pressing”. We have used the press pictured below with great results!
Image is from Nature Press Amazon link
I have not used the 3rd “microwave method” but I know lots of friends who have, and they swear by it. Here is a video that shows you how to use a microwave to press your flowers. You can also try this microwave flower press that is sold on Amazon (shown below and linked in our materials list).
Image is from Microfleur 5” Amazon link
Trace and cut two rabbit ear shapes and one strip for a headband out of poster board. We decided to paint our ears a golden-peachy color. If you want to do this just flip your poster board over so that you are painting on the matte side not the shiny side.
Once the watercolor was dry we started adding our pressed flowers to the ears with mod podge and a brush. We decoupaged some digital flower images on to our ears in addition to the real pressed flowers to give them a bit of variety and vibrancy.
When the flowers + Mod Podge are sealed and completely dry. Attach your ears to your band with a dab of hot glue at the base of each bunny ear. Now it’s time to punch a hole on each side of your band (we used a small 1/8 punch for this step). Then slip your elastic or twine through the holes and knot them to keep them in place.
These bunny ears pair oh so perfectly with Gina’s beautiful book!
