DIY: plant prints with a hammer

A special way to brighten a letter!

In the olden days we regularly dug our writing paper out of the cupboard. The envelopes and sheets featured pictures of horses, sunsets and our favourite boy band. We would write  cheery letters to a pen pal in elegant, curling letters, stick the stamp neatly in the top right corner and add a drop of Oilily perfume as the finishing touch! 

The contemporary version of this looks just as beautiful (and may smell even better) and is totally hip. Time to get your fountain pens out of the cupboard!

Briefe verschönern - Pflanzenfreude.de

You will need

  • Flowers or leaves, in the example we use petals from the hydrangea

  • Watercolour paper

  • Hammer

  • Smooth hard base

  • Kitchen paper

  • Scissors

  • Tweezers

  • Optional: acrylic spray for fixing and envelopes for sending

Get to work

Step 1. Cut the stems off the flowers completely. Scatter the flowers playfully across the paper and the envelope.

Step 2. Place two layers of kitchen paper on the flowers. Hit the flowers with a hammer until you can clearly see the contours of the flower through the kitchen paper. Do this thoroughly!

Step 3. Peel off the kitchen paper and use tweezers to remove the flowers from the paper.

Step 4. Fix the colour by spraying with acrylic spray.

Please note, not every plant is suitable for this DIY project. Whether it leaves a nice print depends on the amount of colourant in the plant and how moist it is. Ask your florist!

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