Flower Pounding: A Craft Based on Science

Flower Pounding is a cool way to decorate t-shirts or make cards.  It's really easy to do and looks great. 

Supplies needed:

• Flowers, grass and leaves
• Wax paper (or plastic wrap if you don't have wax paper)
• A rubber or wooden mallet or a hammer
• Fabric or Watercolor Paper

Directions:

1. Put the paper or fabric onto a hard, smooth surface.
2. Arrange flower one petal at a time, leaves and grass on the fabric or paper.
3. Cover with wax paper (or plastic wrap).
4. Pound with the mallet until they look "juicy."
5. Lift the wax paper and check.
6. If they are done, scrape off the flower petals.  If not, pound some more and check again.

Tips and Hints: 

• Test samples first.
• Pull apart the flowers or they will "smush" and make a big blob of color. 
• Some flowers (especially red and pink) will tend to turn brown when you pound them.  This is because they are colored by co-pigmented anthocyanins.  Co-pigmented means two different chemicals that interact in the flower to produce the red color.  Anthocyanins break down in air once they are outside of the flower.  Some reds will last, but test first.
• Purple flowers usually keep their color.  They are also anthocyanins but seem to hold up better.  I'm not sure why.  (Scientists don't always know all the answers).
• Yellow flowers work really well.  They are often colored by carotenoid pigments.  These are pigments like orange in carrots.  (That's where their name comes from). They are very stable and don't react with air.   I haven't tried it, but pounding carrots would probably work really well too.
• Autumn leaves look great... more of those carotenoids
• Stems usually "smush" all over the place.  Grass makes better stems.



Test flowers.  These are pounded onto a wool felt blend (30% wool)



Autumn leaves work great if you pound really hard.  These are done on a wool felt blend (30% wool)