I pack my suitcase…..filling it with flowers and “bashers”, gathering hammers, chimes, tubes and anything we could use for bashing!!

We talked about preserving, holding on to things, ways we could keep these flowers for longer. The flowers the class had given me on my last visit had faded and fell away. We thought about other ways we press…..pushing, putting heavy things on top,  squashing, squeezing, jumping on it…….lets give this a go

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Ms. Cross had a stack of fabrics cut and ready. We laid the fabric out and arranged a picture on top with the flowers I had brought……. Then we got to squeezing and squashing, tapping and hammering, beating and hitting, drumming and bashing the flowers into the fabric, leaving the most beautiful marks, stains and images ……

Again we were filling the school with lots of noise. We follow in the afternoon with quieter workings, opening the flower presses, drawing and making paper, trapping the pressed particles within the fibres.