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MARY ANN MOSS

A Vintage Pressed Flower Book From An Old Schoolhouse

gretchen gudefin sent me an email after my last post about pressing wildflowers.   she wrote to me about a girl who picked flowers on her way to school nearly 100 years ago.  with gretchen’s permission i am reposting that email here and including photos of the child’s journal.  i’m including notes gretchen wrote about some of eleanor’s flowers.

i’m very taken with this simple taping method and will try it sometime.

These are more commonly known as trillium; also wake robins. They’re one of the earliest spring flowers to bloom in our woods and Eleanor is correct – they DO smell awful. Some old timers called them “stinking benjamins”

Hi Mary Ann,
Love your pressed flowers! I use lots of different ways to press flowers for my journals from a tiny “backpacker’s press” to simple sheets of white paper under a stack of heavy books. If on the the road, I often just put the flowers in an envelope and tuck it in the back of my sketchbook/journal until I get them home and then put them under the stack of books.
My method of attachment is simple: washi tape! I got the idea from a sweet little journal I found a number of years ago now, wedged behind the top drawer of the schoolmarm’s desk in the old one room schoolhouse in our town here in New Hampshire. The journal was put together in 1922-26 by a little girl named Eleanor Chadwick containing the flowers she picked on her way to school. She simply attached them with what looks like some kind of cloth tape. ( The book is now at the Historical Society – I made sure of it ) 
I decided to replicate her journal with flowers and leaves that I picked along that very same road, almost 90 years later. I used a moleskine cahier and in lieu of the cloth tape, I used some botanically inspired washi tape and was thrilled with my results. I have used washi tape to attach my pressed flowers in all my journal/sketchbooks ever since. 
Thought you might like to see some pages from both Eleanor’s journal and my own ‘homage’ to hers. Eleanor’s captions are quite charming – the caraway page reads: “We have caraway all along the road – after it is cooked sometimes it put into cookies. I like caraway cookies”. And the blue asters: “Blue asters grow in fields same as buttercups do – they have long stems- they fade color when pressed but they are pretty just the same”

I haven’t a clue what this plant is or could be. I have many old 19thC books of wildflowers of the New England area and have searched them to no avail

There actually IS a large patch of these still growing almost exactly 1/2 mile down the road from the schoolhouse!

the pages that follow are from gretchen’s pressed flower journal.  i especially love the washi tape she used.  she tells me it’s a discontinued line of old ledger design.

i certainly do get some mighty fine emails from interesting people who read my blog.  i almost always print them and paste them into my writing journal.   after 11 years of blogging i’ve made rich connections with many of you who stop in to see what’s happening, send emails, and leave comments.  i remember in the first 4-5 years of keeping a blog, i rarely responded to comments, but these days the connections i’ve made enhance my blogging experience so much.  you’ve made my world richer.  by the way i usually respond to comments these days in the comment section.  i don’t know because i haven’t actually tried it, but i think you can subscribe to the comments and receive my reply.  i’m sure one of you will pipe up and let me know how and if that works.

with or without comments i’ll just be here:   piddling, blabbering, and recording.  keeping a ship’s log of my voyage.

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Comments

  1. These are just so charming! Someday, many many years from now, maybe someone will put Gretchen’s pressed flower book in a museum too. Just a delight! Thank you Gretchen and MAM for sharing this.

  2. I have been reading your blog for some time now and really enjoy it. It’s probably my favourite blog. I don’t travel so I live vicariously through you. 🙂 This is such an interesting blog. I just wondered if you knew that using acid free paper to press your flowers keeps the colour of the flowers. I used to use phone books and with paper towels and the colours would fade badly.
    Thank you for taking the time to write these blogs.
    I would also like to say that your students are so lucky to have such a creative caring teacher.

    • thanks leone, for the acid-free tip, that fits with an idea i had of folding thin watercolor paper to hold my pressed flowers between the pages of the books when i’m on the road!

  3. Gretchen, Thank you for sharing these…both Eleanor’s and yours. Love her tape method so much. And your compositions are very beautiful. I especially like how you’ve kept the burgundy petals under that fabulous washi tape. So cool.

  4. I love both of these flower journals. And I’m definitely adding some pressed stuff/collected assemblage stuff in my book. I’m experimenting now with the photos. I remember making these flower and leaf books when I was a kid. But then I’m an out-of-control collector: flowers, leaves, bones, twigs, shells, rocks, seeds, fur, pine cones, feathers, owl poop, etc., etc.

  5. I love both the vintage flower pressings and the new. I am also inspired to get some beautiful Japanese washi tape and try pressing some of the treasures I find on my daily walks. I’ve been away from Connecticut traveling in San Francisco and the Pacific Northwest for the past two-plus weeks, but am eager to get home to see what’s in bloom and what’s faded (please let the wineberries still be there!)

    Mary Ann, I have to let you know that your blog has been a lifesaver for my transient insomnia. I have started reading your blog postings from the beginning in 2007, and the art and your life experiences put me in a wonderful place where I can relax and fall asleep thinking about beautiful things. I really am so grateful.

    • benay…what a compliment. thank you. what a lovely trip you must’ve had here on our west coast. i’m partial to it myself as you know. 🙂

  6. I have also been using washi tape for this kind of thing. Now am resolved to pick more. Here’s a tip I learned from Maira Kalman: always put some fig leaves in your journal, because they never lose their smell! About to go retrieve my Sicily journal and see if that’s true 😉

  7. LOVE the journal pages with pressed flowers…….wonderful. We should all make one. I have loved making friends from my blog and IG. So many lovely people out there. I love your blog, MAM and hearing about your travels. Thanks for sharing.

  8. Sweet journals. Love the washi tape idea and will adopt it for my own journaling. Always enjoy your posts here and on Facebook. 🙂

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