I have been making greeting cards for years! I was using Perfect Paper Adhesive but here in Hawaii, unbenounced to me, there are little tiny almost invisible to the eye, BUGS! And, they ”continue to eat the flowers once sealed with PPA!“ I have found my best bet and failure free ”Mod Podge” is the BEST sealant! I use the matte, not the glossy and I must say my cards turn out beautiful and best of all, they last a lifetime! I have done a lot of experimenting with varios glues, adhesives and I always return to Mod Podge! As far as pressing flowers, try to use those that have the same thickness. This allows for even drying. The larger flowers with big, bulky centers, i.e,. cosmos cosmos, I take the centers out, press the petals and save the seeds to grow more cosmo’s. I am also a huge fan of placing the flowers beteen 2 pieces of Bounty paper towel. This is the only paper towel I can find that doesn’t have a design with depth to it. I am also a die-hard put my flowers in a big heavy book followed by several other heavy books then and I wait 4-5 days to check on them. I think the biggest thrill for me to this day is peeking under the paper towel to see how they’ve dried! Seriously, my heart flutters with joy when I first set look at them! I get giggly just before opening the book! As an added note, I seem to always use too much Mod Podge which nearly always makes me press the finished card back into the large book and stacking several more heavy books on top of them! This pressed flower card making has saved my life!! I have been suffering from debilitating fibromyalgia for over 15 years now and this is one thing that gets my mind off of the pain I feel every day! And, if I might be so bold, I have gotten better and better as the years go by! I hope any of the information I have shared will help or inspire anyone to make flowers which are already beautiful into a life-lasting treasure by turning them into something someone you love can have as a memory for life! Aloha * Liz

I would gather ideas first. And check what paper items you may already have in the house. any decorative paper or even scrap of material. Practice using a plain paper cut to card size and start layering some of the snippets on it to form an attractive background. Then find a cute pictre of an animal or flower and carefully cut it out and glue it to the front. If you have a nice handwriting write a saying on the front. see how it looks. Then when you go to the store get a little pack of plain notecards with envelopes usually found in the card making area. look at the rubber stamps and pick out a general one that you could use on a lot of different cards and then get a black rubber stamp pad. Take those home and try the sme practice method with those. Then you can expand your supplies Hope this helps.

I second SCS. The gallery is full of wonderful ideas. I usually buy my white cardstock from Office Depot (zerox brand). I get white envelopes in bulk on e-bay once every few years. I buy vellum and other cardstock from Michael's with coupons. Their white isn't thick or smooth enough. You can get rubber stamps anywhere Michaels, Jo-Ann's, stamping-up (home based business from a consultant). Embossing powders and heat tools are fun. There are a ton of cutting products on the market - punches and dies and fancy edged scissors. Cuttlebug makes wonderful embossing folders if you are into that type of texture. Ribbons. Clear and tinted paper glazes. Scoring tools to make perfect folds. Glitter & glitter glue (stickles). Coloring tools - chalks, shimmering chalks, colored pencils, metallic pencils, markers, watercolors, shimmering watercolors, etc. It depends how fancy you want to get and how much you want to spend. Contact a stampingup demo and purchase a catalog ($10) - there are lots of ideas in it and product info or buy a cardmaker or papercrafts magazine from Michaels to get ideas and info on products.

Thanks, MaryAnn, Minnie, and Lorraine. Although Mom hasn't recognized any relatives in years, she is still able to read. I don't know how much she understands of what she reads, but at least she still can read. Alzheimer's is such a mysterious (and devastating) disease.