Will...as always good to see your garden. You do such a nice job in figuring where to put everything. As in my case I am running out of grass and you appear to be on a fast track to do that. Is that green I see there...yes it is. It's been some Winter here... nothing like we are use to. Everybody complaining and down in the dumps. We did have one day of sun shine yesterday and now back to rain with a big snow storm over the week end. On the positive side...Some of my conifer orders should be showing up in 6 weeks. Hopefully the transformation from Winter to Spring should be fast. Dave

Treeskate, I use a microwave terra cotta press that I bought several years ago. Lee Valley microwave press Its trial and error to time the pressing right -- generally 30-60 seconds will do it. Its easy to overdo it. Sometimes I will do 15 seconds at a time and check. Then I store them in flat plastic storage containers with silica gel packs. (Start saving them when you see them with many products). I keep it all in a closet until ready to tackle the project. I'm so glad you asked about the pressing. I am excited to see that Lee Valley sells the replacement pads for the press. I need some and I couldn't find them anywhere. I didn't even know what they were made of til I just went to that link to find the press. I've been using felt (when I burnt my original pads this year) but it isn't quite as good. There is a plastic version of a microwave press too. I'm sure the old-fashioned book method is just as good, but I only used it for a few ferns that were too big for the microwave press. I also used some leftover 13" square tiles (with papertowels). Terrene, your bouquet sounds lovely but now you're getting into an area that requires skill and creativity!!! The solo foliage is soooo much easier. I think just foliage is also a more contemporary aesthetic. I would like the bouquet, but I don't think my recipients would so much. When I first got the press and started collecting flowers for it, I found them much harder to work with. Many flowers have to be "re-built" petal by petal if they have thick centers. Flowers also strained my limited creativity. Simple foliage is a no-brainer. Right up my alley! Also as far as UV protection, I checked the glue I use and it does say it is UV resistant. Unfortunately, I did not use it as a top coat over the foliage. I think I will try an experiment with coated and non-coated and put them in a sunny room and see what happens. There is also such a thing as UV resistant glass, but I didn't pursue that. ALso, when gluing the foliage on card stock, they don't always lay flat when glued, depending on the leaf substance. I put a piece of waxed paper over them and then put them in a really big book (American Hort Society Encyclopedia of Gardening) for at least a couple of hours. Then they are secure for further handling and framing.

Thanks GWlolo. I found the hooks at Home Depot, Delta brand. They hold the towels very well, they are big enough to catch the towels easily. I also liked the way they mounted to the wall, no set screws which tend to wiggle loose. These hooks slide down onto clips on the base plate and hold really well. Thanks for the DIY compliment, my Dad taught me well, and DH encourages me. This post was edited by prairiemom on Tue, Feb 26, 13 at 13:11

I think that it's wonderful! In fact I began painting a bureau in my MBR (not the one that I wanted to paint black) turquoise to coordinate w/ new bedding I just got. I couldn't justify buying more paint so I randomly began sampling cast off qts. in my basement & ended up coming across 2 that looked so good together that I decided to paint stripes on the bureau. Then I remembered your post. I'm painting my stripes (deep teal & dusty turquoise) today I hope & DH is getting me black glass knobs for it. Thanks for the sublminal inspiration!