Monograms and Framed Art {Using Dried & Crushed Rose Petals}

Now that Valentine’s Day is over, you might be wondering what to do with those bouquets of roses you might have received from a loved one. 🙂  Today I have a few ideas of how to use dried roses to create pretty art for your home.

I am a pretty sentimental gal myself, and awhile back I mentioned that I’ve kept and saved a basket full of roses my husband has given me throughout our relationship (we met when we were 14!). After MANY years of collecting and saving the roses I finally used some of them to make a Rose Heart Shadow Box a few years ago that I still love displaying to this day!

More recently I decided to use a different technique to use dried roses in my home decor—instead of using whole dried roses, I crushed the rose petals. My mom made me something similar to this years ago using flowers from my wedding bouquet, so I was eager to try it myself. It really is a pretty simple (and a bit messy) project, but ends up being a wonderful and meaningful piece of art! I decided to use my ancient vintage roses to make a monogram on canvas.

Supplies to make crushed roses monogram/art:

• dried roses or other dried flower petals
• blank canvas (or cardstock + frame)
• paint
• foam craft brushes
• glue (I used Elmer’s glue)
• pencil
• ziplock baggie
• small bowl

First off, this is how I dry my roses—hang them upside down. This helps to keep their shape better as they dry, which would be important if you wanted to make the shadow box project I linked to at the top of this post. 🙂

Let’s get started! Pick several dried roses from your stash. They don’t have to be in good shape because you’re just going to smush them anyway. 🙂

Place roses in a baggie and start to smash the petals, squeezing and crushing them into small pieces. You could use a rolling pin which might help if they are extra crispy and crunchy!

I poured mine into a small bowl and used the bottom of a medicine cup to make the petals even smaller. If you had one of those mortar & pestil thingies you could really pulverize them. But I’m not that fancy so I used what I had.

I didn’t crush mine to powder, just into small enough pieces to provide variety and texture, almost like big flecks of glitter or something. You can crush them as much as you want.

I painted the blank canvas using some acrylic paint in my favorite color I was sent by the kind people at DecoArt to try out: Spa Blue. YUM.

Once dry I took a pencil and sketched out the monogram.

Then I traced the outline with Elmer’s Glue and used a foam craft brush to fill in the letter more.

Next I covered the glue with the crushed rose petals—the same way you would do with glitter. Make sure all of the glue is covered, then carefully shake off the excess petals back into the bowl or onto a paper towel to use for other projects. It really doesn’t have to be perfect. You can kind of clean it up and use your fingers to push the petals into place and make sure the shape is the way you want it to be, adding more petals if there are any gaps.

Voila, a fun monogram using my special saved roses! 🙂 It comes together pretty quickly. To protect this art it would probably be a good idea to seal it with a matte spray sealant.

Such great texture!

I also made another easy project using a design I made in Photoshop (me and hubby’s initials, awwww!), printed on photo paper. So instead of drawing a heart I just added my glue to the heart I printed out. Following the same steps as above, this is how it turned out!

I framed it in an awesome bracket frame that I painted and glazed from Poppy Seed Projects, and I’m happy with how it turned out!

Oh, and here’s a small one I whipped up that would make a cute Valentine’s Day decor for next year. 🙂 I’ve been crushing roses like crazy the past few days, ha ha!

You can completely personalize this and use any shape you want for the crushed rose petals. For another project I used roses that my sweet husband gave our daughters for their Christmas dance recital. I made some fun framed art to hang in their bedroom. I traced a butterfly shape this time around onto some patterned paper, then matted it with white cardstock. 🙂 The girls love it!

So have fun and save those roses to make beautiful art later! It’s okay to be sentimental, right? 🙂