Monday, May 29, 2023

Flower Pounding


While wandering around the yard, I thought the fuchsia blossoms would be good to use for flower pounding.


If you've never heard of flower pounding, you take blossoms, lay them on watercolor paper, and pound them with a hammer for some savage amusement.

If you Google flower pounding tutorials, most will tell you to use fresh blossoms. My plant is so pretty and doing well, I didn't want to take fresh blooms. Some had recently passed and fallen on the ground. I also pulled a few that were just going.

On a hard surface, you arrange the blossoms on your paper. I'm using the inside cover of my giant dictionary as I didn't want to do this on the hardwood floor.


After the petals are arranged the way you like, you can cover them with wax paper or a paper towel. Then grab your hammer and go to town


You want blossoms that still have some moisture in them and aren't  completely dried out.


When you're done pounding, you remove the spent blooms.


You're left with a "watercolor" impression. Sometimes the colors are different than expected. You can use the finished paper as collage fodder or to make a card. You can outline  and doodle around the image, too. 

I haven't decided what I want to do with this piece yet.

14 comments:

  1. This is fun, I used to do this with the kids at school, they loved it. Happy Monday,Valerie

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  2. The results look great, and I think if there's something bugging you it would be a great activity. Happy Monday CJ.

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  3. I've never heard of flower pounding. Cool! And the result is so pretty :) It might work with end-of-day daylilies...

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    1. It will work with pretty much any flowers. If the stem ends are too thick, you can always peel the petals and use individually. Just remember that not all the flowers will give the same colors as their petals.

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  4. This is one of the coolest ideas ever! I always wondered "how" this was done. Thank you, CJ!

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  5. I've done flower pounding and showed it several times on my blog. Instead of using watercolor paper and wax paper, I used card stock that I folded in half. Then I get the mirror image. I always used irises because they are so juicy. One time I left the petal on the stem and pounded it, too. I prefer to do mine outside on my concrete steps, but I used a mallet and pounded on my craft table once. Yours turned out LOVELY.

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    Replies
    1. It's so fun as the results are not always what's expected

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