There aren’t too many options for what to do with your wedding day bouquet after the big day. You can toss it of course, but many people seem to get a separate bouquet for the toss. You can have it preserved if you plan ahead. And one philanthropic idea that I love is to donate your flowers to a nursing home or hospital. If you’ve got a unique idea, I’d love to hear it.

I had so many extra flowers after the wedding since we did the flowers ourselves. Shortly after Christmas I decided to make handmade paper and tossed in a good portion of the leftover wedding flowers.

Photo from instructables.com

The materials needed:

• a blender
• screen
• 2 wood frames
• staple gun and/or hammer and nails
• a large tub wide enough for the frames
• several handfuls of shredded/torn paper

I also used dryer lint and leftover holiday wrapping paper in my paper. We only had a few loads worth of lint (about 1.5 cups maybe). To begin, I soaked the lint and paper scraps for about 20-30 minutes to soften it and make it easier for blending. While that was soaking in a bowl, I created the screen for the paper. I found the window screen on a huge roll at my local hardware store for $5. Of course, you only need enough to cover your frame. I chose an 8×8 unfinished wooden frame at a craft shop for $10. I used a staple gun to attach the screen to the frame. The screen needs to be tight across. The other frame is your deckle (used as a barrier or stencil to give shape to your paper).

After your paper scraps and lint have soaked, put one cup of paper mush in the blender. This is when I threw in petals of dried hydrangea from my centerpieces. The more flowers, the better as they will add pretty texture to your paper and naturally die the paper. My paper turned very green since my hydrangeas were green. I added enough water so that the blender was almost entirely full. Blend the materials until they make a soft, smooth soupy texture. You may have to do this multiple times so that you have about 3-5 inches of the pulpy water in your large tub. When you have enough of the mixture in the tub take the frame with screen and the deckle on top. Pretend you are panning for gold, swirl the screen and deckle until you have a consistent layer of pulp on the screen.

Take the deckle off and flip the screen onto some fabric, paper towels, or newsprint so that your sheet of handmade paper can dry. Before removing the screen, you may pat it down with a dry sponge to try to remove some excess water. Or you may want to put another piece of fabric down and take a rolling pin to get the paper flat and free of water. If you can do this outside during the summer it may not take but a few hours to dry.

The paper is unique and really beautiful. I plan on using the handmade paper in greeting cards and framed art. It’s a very subtle reminder of the natural joy and beauty of that day.

If you’re having trouble following my cryptic directions, this site was super helpful to me with their step by step pictures.