How to Keep Pressed Flowers From Losing Their Color
One of the slightly disappointing things you learn when you start pressing flowers is that the flower you put into the press is not always the flower you get back out.
A bright pink flower might come out much darker. White flowers often turn cream. Reds can become burgundy, and sometimes a pale pink flower comes out significantly more beige than pink.
That doesn’t necessarily mean you did anything wrong.
Pressed flowers are still natural plant material, and removing all that moisture changes them. There really isn’t a way to freeze a flower exactly as it looked when you picked it. What you can do is give it the best possible chance of drying quickly and evenly, because that usually gives you much better color.
After pressing enough flowers, you also start learning which ones behave beautifully and which ones seem determined to humble you every single time.
Start With a Good Flower
Probably the biggest thing I’ve learned about keeping color is that the final result starts before the flower ever goes into the press.
A flower press can preserve a beautiful flower, but it can’t really rescue one that’s already wilting, bruised or beginning to brown. Pressing usually makes those little imperfections more obvious.
I look for flowers that are fresh, healthy and dry. If I’m choosing between a perfect flower that opened yesterday and a brand-new one that’s still covered in morning dew, I’m probably choosing the dry one.
If I’m cutting flowers outside, I usually avoid picking them right after rain or watering. Morning can be tricky because of dew, while the middle of a really hot afternoon can leave flowers droopy before you even get them inside.
You’re looking for that sweet spot: fresh, dry and still looking its best.
Moisture Is Usually the Bigger Problem
When pressed flowers turn brown, people sometimes assume they didn’t tighten the press enough. In my experience, moisture is usually the bigger issue.
Flowers can hold a surprising amount of water, especially in their centers and thicker parts.
Roses are a perfect example. They look delicate, but a whole rose is actually a lot of plant material packed tightly together. The outer petals can dry beautifully while the center is still holding moisture, which is when you can start seeing browning, translucent petals or even mold.
I have absolutely put a gorgeous flower into a press thinking, “This is going to be so pretty,” and opened it later to find something that looked considerably less romantic.
It’s one of those lessons you usually learn by doing it wrong once.
You Don’t Always Want to Press the Flower Whole
This was one of the bigger mindset shifts for me when I started working with thicker flowers.
You don’t have to preserve the flower exactly the way it grew.
For roses, peonies, dahlias and other large layered blooms, I would much rather take the flower apart and press the pieces separately than try to flatten the entire thing and hope for the best.
Rose petals press beautifully on their own. So do peony petals. Hydrangeas are much easier if you separate the individual florets rather than trying to press a big cluster.
If I know I’m eventually going to use the flowers for framed artwork, taking them apart actually gives me more options because I can rebuild the general shape later without having a thick center sticking out of the frame.
The first time you pull apart a perfectly good flower, it feels a little wrong. Then you see how much better the pieces dry.
Blotting Paper Matters More Than It Gets Credit For
The wooden flower press gets most of the attention because it’s the pretty part, but your blotting paper is doing a lot of the actual work. Its job is to absorb moisture as it leaves the flowers.
For thin flowers like violas or little wildflowers, I usually prefer to close the press and leave everything alone. For thicker or wetter flowers, I pay more attention during the first few days.
If I open the press and the blotting paper feels noticeably damp, I’ll replace it with dry paper. You don’t want a flower sitting against paper that’s already holding a bunch of the moisture you’re trying to remove.
This is also why I use a traditional wooden press with replaceable blotting paper for most of my flowers. I like being able to control the pressure and change the paper when I need to. If you’re looking for one, these are the maple flower presses I make and use.
← I would hyperlink that sentence directly to your flower press collection or best-selling press.
Just be careful when you change the paper. Half-dried petals are ridiculously easy to damage. They’re not soft like fresh flowers anymore, but they aren’t fully dry either, so they love to wrinkle, stick and tear.
Tweezers become very useful very quickly.
Give Your Flowers Some Space
When you first start pressing flowers, it is extremely tempting to fill every inch of the paper.
You have a whole sheet of blotting paper and a pile of flowers, so obviously you want to fit as many as possible on there.
I did the same thing.
Now I leave some room between flowers so moisture isn’t getting trapped between neighboring blooms, and I try not to overlap petals unless I’m intentionally creating a certain shape.
Two flowers pressed on top of each other rarely become two beautiful pressed flowers. More often, they become one weird, damp flower sandwich.
You also want firm, even pressure rather than just tightening the press as hard as humanly possible. I tighten each corner a little at a time and work my way around the press so the pressure stays fairly even across the whole surface.
You want the flowers flat. You do not need to put the press into a hydraulic death grip.
Keep the Press Somewhere Boring
This may be the least glamorous flower-pressing advice possible, but your press does best somewhere dry, indoors and out of direct sunlight.
A shelf is fine. A closet is fine. A craft room is fine.
A sunny windowsill is not better just because it seems like the kind of place flowers should live.
Light breaks down natural pigments, and direct heat can make drying less predictable. The flowers are already going through enough changes while they dry.
My flower press does not need ambiance. It needs a boring, dry corner of the house where I can leave it alone.
Some Colors Just Change
This is something you notice pretty quickly once you start pressing different kinds of flowers.
Purples and blues can be gorgeous, but some get much deeper. Bright pinks may soften. Red flowers can turn burgundy. White flowers commonly become ivory or cream, and greens often shift toward olive.
Sometimes the change is subtle. Sometimes you open the press and wonder how the flower completely changed its identity while you weren’t looking.
That’s normal.
A pressed flower changing color does not automatically mean you pressed it incorrectly. Natural pigments change as flowers dry, and different varieties can behave very differently.
It’s also worth remembering this when you’re looking at pressed flower inspiration online. Natural flowers are not supposed to look plastic or perfectly saturated forever. They soften, fade and change.
Sometimes I actually like the dried color better.
If you’re new to pressing and want an easier place to start, thinner flowers are usually much more forgiving. Pansies, violas, cosmos, forget-me-nots, delphinium, Queen Anne’s lace and small wildflowers are some of my favorites. Ferns are easy too, and individual rose petals or hydrangea florets are much more predictable than pressing those flowers whole.
That doesn’t mean every flower will behave exactly the same way. I’ve had flowers growing right next to each other come out differently.
That is simultaneously one of the fun things about flower pressing and one of the things that makes me want to argue with plants.
Make Sure They’re Actually Dry
Taking flowers out too early can cause color problems later too.
When I check whether something is finished, I don’t pay much attention to the very edges of the petals because those almost always dry first. I check the thickest part of the flower instead.
Depending on the flower, that might be the center, the base of the petals or part of the stem.
It should feel completely dry and papery. If an area still feels cool, soft, flexible or fleshy, I put it back.
I’ve learned that if I’m standing there trying to convince myself something is “probably dry enough,” it usually isn’t.
There’s very little downside to giving a flower a few extra days. There can be a pretty big downside to storing it while it still has moisture inside.
And yes, I know you want to keep opening the press to check.
I do too.
There’s nothing wrong with checking occasionally, especially if you need to change damp paper, but constantly opening the press means you’re repeatedly disturbing the flowers when they’re at their most fragile. Once I know everything is drying normally, I try to leave it alone.
Try being the important word there.
Don’t Give Up on Flowers That Change Color
If a flower comes out brown, cream or much more muted than you expected, don’t automatically throw it away.
I’ve had flowers look disappointing by themselves and then look completely different once I start arranging them with other flowers.
Cream, tan, faded mauve, rust and muted green can be gorgeous in pressed flower artwork. They can give an arrangement that old botanical-book feeling that people intentionally try to recreate.
And if the flower came from somewhere meaningful — a wedding bouquet, your garden, a trip or flowers someone gave you — the point probably wasn’t that it stayed exactly the same shade forever anyway.
The flower can change and still be worth keeping.
Protect the Color After Pressing Too
Once flowers are completely dry, I store them somewhere dry, dark and flat until I’m ready to use them.
I basically think of pressed flowers like very delicate pieces of paper at that point. Some are surprisingly sturdy. Others will break if you breathe on them too enthusiastically.
Light is probably the biggest thing to keep in mind long term.
Pressed flowers will eventually fade if they’re exposed to enough sunlight. There really isn’t a technique that will keep a natural flower exactly the same color forever.
For especially meaningful artwork, like wedding flowers, UV-protective glass or acrylic can help slow that process. But I also think it’s better to expect pressed flowers to age a little rather than expecting them to stay frozen in time.
That’s part of working with something natural.
The Best Way to Get Better Is to Pay Attention
If you really want to get better at keeping color in your pressed flowers, start paying attention to your own results.
You don’t need an elaborate spreadsheet — although I am absolutely the kind of person who could turn flower pressing into an elaborate spreadsheet if given the opportunity.
Just keep little notes.
Maybe your pink hydrangeas always turn dusty mauve. Maybe a particular white rose dries cream but still looks beautiful. Maybe the cosmos you picked in July kept their color perfectly.
After a while, you start building your own little reference guide without even realizing it.
I have flowers now that I can put into the press with pretty high confidence and others where I’m basically closing the lid and saying, “Well, we’ll see.”
And honestly, that’s part of why I still like flower pressing so much.
There’s always that little moment when you finally open the press and see what happened. Sometimes you get exactly what you expected. Sometimes the colors changed completely.
And every once in a while, you pull out a flower that dried so perfectly that your first thought is immediately, Okay, what am I going to make with this?
Ready to Press Your Own Flowers?
Whether it’s something growing in your backyard, wildflowers from a trip or one bloom from a bouquet you’re not quite ready to throw away, the best time to press it is while it’s still fresh.
Shop my reusable maple flower presses here and start with something easy like a pansy, viola or a few little wildflowers.
And if your first batch doesn’t come out exactly how you pictured it, don’t give up on it.
Some of the flowers I know how to press best now are the ones I completely screwed up the first time.
