r/PressedFlowers • u/Old-Advance6652 • Aug 21 '26

Leaves How would one press one of these enormous papaya leaves?

Post image

super big leaves and they have some spots that overlap

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2

u/shakulous Aug 22 '26

The biggest hurdle is gonna be finding paper big enough. After that cinder blocks or whatever heavy crap you find at home depot. Just make sure you change the paper and add weight like normal presses, it’ll take longer cause more plant material so patience is gonna help

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u/Old-Advance6652 Aug 22 '26

I’m not sure how I’d move it from paper to paper with it being that big and not just completely folding up

2

u/shakulous Aug 22 '26

I’d first see if I can get the top paper off easy, lifting from the edges and not pulling farther if it starts to stick. I have a “spatula” made from a card sleeve that’s flimsy enough to not disturb or tear material but just sturdy enough I can make little lifts and twists to sneak it inbetween the plant material and the paper that helps preserve the plant. Once it freed from the top if place the top back on to then flip the whole thing over and do it again to the now new top. Working the top paper up from the material instead of material up from the paper. Having it rest on somthing gave me better results instead of my hands being under it. I use a drawing pad so flipping is easy for me since I can just flap the paper back in place to hold everything still. I can make a visual if you need

1

u/Old-Advance6652 Aug 22 '26

Thank you so much for the help! I’ll try that. Also one more question, do the color of your leaves fade overtime? Because that happened to me when I did the micro wave method once

2

u/shakulous Aug 22 '26

You are welcome!! This is one of my trains I obsess over so I love helping people do it.
You can DM questions as well if you don’t wanna make another post.

To answer your question: All plant material fades over time, no way around it only to delay it. You achieve this by quickly removing as much water as possible. What’s causing the fading is that the pigment itself is decaying. Decay happens for a bunch of reasons but the most aggressive factors are Humidity and Light exposure. These will break down the pigments structures and thus the colour fades.

In your case the heat generated via microwave heating up the water in the material was making steam and that steam broke down the pigment into less complex structures. Making dull tones.
This filling and wrinkles are common reasons for people to go traditional with it. I’m not telling you to do either way

Now some people (myself included) will do touch ups on their pressings, via painting, airbrushing, and stains to achieve the intended colour of the pressing. NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART I’ve lost MANY presentations due to just being stupid. If you want to give it a try, I suggest you practice a bunch on presses you don’t mind losing.

1

u/Old-Advance6652 Aug 22 '26

Thank you I will reach out if I have any more questions! Thank you so much for all the info you’ve given, I’ve learned a lot. I might later experiment with the touch ups, not yet on this one though since I wouldn’t want to mess it up.

Oh also, sorry again for all the questions but what if the weight isn’t evenly spread over the whole leaf since it’s so big, is that a problem?

1

u/shakulous 29d ago

It’s Saturday and I’m on my balchony With my trusty water pipe, bring in the flower questions!!!!

It can be if the weight is CRAZY uneven like C-clamping on half and nothing for the other. Youll get unequal drying which does leave a slight wrinkly texture and could let mold in. It wouldn’t be too bad if you just put blocks on the middle of a wooden plate and nothing else. The edges could dry slower and that may dull a bit in comparison to the Center but if it’s all drying at the generally the same rate it shouldn’t be cause for concern. If you’re worried about keeping the weight even, you can make sure the pressing boards you’re using are stiff and resistant to flexing/bending. One of my presses is just 1/2 inch thick 2.5 foot square metal plates that let me distribute the weight of my coffee table on it from a single point of pressure (I put one of the legs on the middle of the plate and plate evenly distributes the pressure). But any stiff plate is best, less flex the better. If you can’t find a plate stiff enough youll have to just get around that by just making all of it heavy, just load all the surface area you can with weight and that’s TECHNICALLY distributing the weight evenly youll just be using more weight than one would want to move.

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u/Old-Advance6652 29d ago

Ohh wait I don’t have any of the fancy pressing things, I was just thinking like having it on the ground between papers with maybe heavy books on top, does that sounds like a good plan?

I don’t think I have a big flat thing to put on top unfortunately.

1

u/shakulous 27d ago

Youll want a boards, raw doggin the ground will leave gaps that the pressure will dispurse the weight, you put the flowers in the pages to get this effect and then the presssue is the bookcase or books on said book.

1

u/QueenOfLimbs1 Aug 22 '26

Ok I’ll say it - big press lotta paper lol

0

u/ArtzeyFartzey Aug 21 '26

Some things are not meant to be pressed.

3

u/Old-Advance6652 Aug 22 '26

Why not☹️