I haven’t been doing a great deal in my garden lately. A combination of rainy days, a bout of ‘the flu’, and a general lack of motivation have kept me inside, gazing out at all the pruning to do. There’s a few more weeks before the deciduous trees and shrubs start busting out their spring leaves so I’ll have to plan a big pruning push very soon.
I have, however, had a burst of creativity and am messing about with a few creative activities.
I’ve played about with flower photography for a while now (check out my Instagram @TheStolenFlower ) and have dabbled in other things like eco-dyeing paper for book binding among other things. But one thing I had never heard of was ‘Flower Hammering’!
I can’t remember where I saw it first (probably on Pinterest) but I thought “this is something I have to try!”
What fun!
The process is easy, just have a solid base and place a piece of water colour paper on that base (I used a piece of thick cardboard). Gather the flowers you’re going to try and place them over the paper in an artistic fashion. 
Next, place another piece of water colour paper on top (that way you will get two pictures), then add another piece of thick cardboard on top of the whole lot.
It can pay to tape everything down so it stays in place.
Next comes the fun part!
Get yourself a hammer and start hitting your stack of cardboard, paper, and flowers all over. Make sure you get every section.
It’s a bit strange doing this to flowers, generally I like to preserve them as much as possible, but sometimes we have to sacrifice for art 🙂
When you’ve had your fill of smashing the hammer down, undo everything and slowly peel the water colour papers apart. You will find a mushed up layer of plant material so that needs to be carefully removed and discarded.
When everything has dried, you’ll find the watercolour paper has been stained by the flowers. Different flowers will give different colours, so experiment and have fun.
When everything has dried you can add your own artistic touches with whatever medium you like, to make it look how you want.
I’ll be adding the finished pictures on to my Instagram account so head on over and check it out!
Til next time!
The Flowerpot Pen 