I saw a blog where the lovely was taping flowers into her journal to journal about.. I wrote a blog about it and a reply to her blog and I also thought this would make sense to share with BoS users as we're probably very likely to put herbs and flowers and such in our books.. So..
Thankfully I did this quite early on with my wreck this journal and not much later on with my Bullet Journal (or Book of Shadows)..
I put flowers from my valentines flowers (2016) into my WTJ I taped them in and tapes over the pages.. Sort or a poormans lamination lol.
After a week there was this aweful smell coming from my bookcase.. Eh? I took my WTJ to do more of the wrecking and realised the pages had gone super manky!! They STINK!! Wrecked.. And not in the fun way the journal encourages or that I was hoping!
The prompt says 'press' leaves and other found objects. The key word is press, like using a flower press to dry out these things.. I have a spooky box club flower press but they're not too expensive on ebay, obviously reuseable and there's loads of tutorials online as to how to dry flowers or press flowers inc diy your own flower press.. But I digress.
So. I ended up taping the backs of the pages and hoping for the best and putting more tape over the front of the pages.. It didn't look too bad and the smell was contained but it's kinda put me off wanting to do this WTJ and over the last year or two it's decomposed more and more and more. Maybe I should remove these pages.......? Maybe I didn't or this happened to me simply so I could share this knowledge and experience with you all now........?
So here it is. Ew!
Oh and the manky brown bleeds through onto 7 or more pages!!! Yeh!!
...
Im not being a killjoy and saying don't put specimens in your book... But perhaps do it in one of these ways..
⬜ Option 1. Use a flower press and thurrely dry out the flowers so they're well preserved and not wet at all.. before putting them in.. Not only will they be thinner in your book but shouldn't decompose or cause as much damage. - I don't know how this would hold up over time.
⬜ Option 2. (what I do) Take photos and print them out... And stick them in and do it that way or if you're talented enough draw them.
There may be some other options but point is don't be sticking decompostable wet things in your books. This includes insects too btw..
And while I have your attention.. People who are sticking magazine pages in note they're not all acid free and this will tarnish your books over time if you plan to keep them. Same with some cheaper stamping inks and printer inks that are not acid free or archival quality. - this for me doesn't so much matter as I take photos of the pages so I'll always have a digital copy if anything should happen to the book..
🖤 Imogen
Ps. Sorry for the icky-ness just trying to help! x
Hi Imogen,
ReplyDeleteJust a little to add to your great post.
If you don't have a press, you can use a heavy book, but make sure you still have heavy, absorbent blotter style paper or lots of layers of paper so the moisture leaving doesn't mar the book you're using. You'll still have to leave it be a good six weeks to press and dry out without peaking.
For mounting, just a little bit of a ph neutral glue keeps the flowers or leaves from loosing more pigment or breaking down. There are a few craft and wood glues that will do the job. Just don't use anything really chemical.
To seal them, they can be laminated, covered with a clear self-adhesive contact paper or a clear acrylic spray although tape will pretty much do the same job. I've never tried hot laminating myself but am told it works fine, of course not much good in a bound journal though.
Thanks for the post. Hope this helps.
Sonja