If you've been collecting pressed flowers or picking up fallen leaves on walks and wondering what to do with them, this short tutorial shows exactly how to bring those pieces into your junk journals. I walk through several different techniques — laminating, contact paper, and acetate — and show a whole flip-through of finished examples so you can see how each one actually looks on the page before you try it yourself.
What we cover
This tutorial focuses on ways to preserve and mount pressed flowers, dried flowers, and leaves as journal embellishments — with practical options depending on what tools and materials you have at home. I also cover how to pair them with printed sentiments and how sewing around the edges can finish each piece beautifully.
What you'll learn
How to use a laminator to preserve pressed flowers and leaves for journal pages, including:
- Laminating flowers pressed in advance
- Laminating leaves straight from outside without waiting to dry first (and what to watch for when you do)
- Placing leaves between napkins first to draw out moisture before laminating — a tip I picked up from watching Amity Bloom, and one I'd recommend now that I've seen the condensation that can appear inside when you skip this step
How to use contact paper as a no-laminator alternative Contact paper comes in rolls, it's inexpensive, and it's easy to find. You place your dried leaf or flower onto scrapbook paper, lay the sentiment where you want it, press the contact paper over the whole thing, and trim around the edges. No machine needed. One bonus: the back stays clear enough that you can still write on it with a regular pen, which you can't do with laminated pieces.
How to work with acetate from packaging instead of buying new acetate I save the clear acetate packaging that comes with books and other products. For this technique, I place the leaf or flower on scrapbook paper, glue it down lightly just to hold it in place, lay the acetate over the top, sew around the edges, and trim. You can also sandwich a leaf between two pieces of acetate and sew around all four sides — which I particularly love for nature-themed journals because you can see both sides of the leaf.
Why sewing around the edges makes a difference Even on laminated or contact-paper pieces, adding a line of machine stitching around the edge brings in visual texture and makes each piece feel more finished. It also does a practical job: when a leaf is loose inside acetate and not glued down, the sewing keeps it centred and stops it floating around.
How to pair sentiments with botanical pieces I printed my sentiments on sticky paper so I can cut and place them without glue. I ink the edges slightly to make them pop. Matching the sentiment to the mood of the leaf or flower makes a real difference — "seek out silence" with a busy, detailed scrapbook paper background, "good things take time" next to a pressed flower that genuinely did take time.
What kinds of plant material actually work You don't need perfect flowers. Small leaves, scraps of dried plant, tiny clusters of dried flowers — all of them laminate and contact-paper beautifully. I used one leaf I picked up and laminated over a year ago, and it still looks great. The variety in shape and colour across all these pieces is part of what makes them interesting.
Tips & gotchas
Pressed flowers need planning ahead. If you want to use them, you need to press and dry them first — that takes time. Leaves, on the other hand, you can pick up on your walk home and use the same afternoon. Both options are shown here, and both work.
If you laminate a leaf without letting it dry first, you may see condensation inside the laminate. I've done this and it's often fine, but the safe approach is to place the leaf between napkins for a little while before it goes through the machine — that draws the moisture out before you seal it in.
Contact paper is genuinely underrated here. It's cheap, widely available, and gives you a clear surface you can actually journal on afterward. With laminated pieces, you'll need a Sharpie rather than a regular pen to write on the surface — worth knowing before you plan a page around it.
When you're using acetate over a loose leaf — not glued down — sewing around the edges isn't just decorative. It's what keeps the leaf centred. Without it, the leaf will shift around and it won't look right in the finished journal. The stitching solves both problems at once.
If you're printing sentiments to go alongside your botanical pieces, printing onto sticky paper saves you a gluing step. A little inking around the cut edges helps them sit on the page rather than disappear into it.
The techniques here are simple enough that you can make a handful of these embellishments in an afternoon, and they work beautifully as inserts, tags, or loose pages tucked into nature-themed journals. If you make some, I'd love to see what you put together.
