I lost my Dad just 5 weeks ago. While we are so very heartbroken, I wanted to make a keepsake for myself and family. I pressed flowers from his funeral with the intent of making wooden bookmarks. One morning it came to me. I needed to scan his signature onto the bookmarks. I had birthday cards he had given to various family members over the years. I was able to scan in a signature for each role he was to our family.
Love you, Bob
Love you, Dad
Love you, Grandpa Tossava
Husband. Brother. Father. Father-in-law. Grandfather.
For the bookmark, I used .025″ Thick Cherry Wood Back Short Grain and cut them 3″ wide by 7″ long. You can cut them to any size you desire with a paper cutter, guillotine, scissors, sharp blade, etc.
For the printed on circle cutouts, I used both .016″ Thick Maple Paper Back Short Grain and .016″ Thick Birch Paper Back Short Grain. I first printed them with a HP Envy Photo 7855 printer, then cut them out with a 2.5″ circle paper punch. Again, you can make them any size. This is what worked for me and my project.
I would like to point out that all flowers are not good for pressing. While we did have a gorgeous assortment of roses that I would have loved to use, they are too big, bulky and do not press well. Roses are better preserved using silica gel, which I did do. Smaller, dainty flowers work best for pressing. I took a chance with the daisies but they turned out beautiful. Almost translucent after I ran them through the laminator.
I put all the flowers between sheets of printer paper and placed them in between pages of a huge dictionary I have. I waited about 2 weeks and they were ready to go.
For glue, my first go-to is always Beacon’s 3-in-1 Glue. You can purchase that from any craft store. I used if for the signature pieces and the flowers. I arranged each bookmark, glued everything in place and let them dry overnight. The next day I ran them through a laminator. You do not need an expensive or elaborate laminator. I used a very inexpensive laminator that I’ve had for over 10 years. I used a paper cutter to trim each bookmark down.
To say I was pleased with how this idea of a keepsake turned out for myself and family, would be an understatement.
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