Pressing Strawberries & Permission to Play!
As a pressed flower artist, I spend most of my time working with nature in its most delicate form; petals, leaves, stems, and blooms I’ve carefully collected and preserved. But every now and then I get the urge to push the boundaries a little. To try something new. To press something… unexpected.
So I tried pressing strawberries.
And guess what? It was a mess. A juicy, sticky, squishy mess. But it was also so much fun. And honestly? The results were adorable.
This little experiment reminded me of something I’m always encouraging others to embrace, but sometimes forget to practice myself. Creative freedom. The freedom to explore, to make something just for fun, to try something that might not work, and to let go of the idea that everything we create has to be perfect or even “successful.”
Art doesn’t have to be serious all the time. It doesn’t have to make sense. It can be playful, curious, and wild. It can look like pressing strawberries just because you’re wondering what they’ll look like flattened on paper.
Sometimes, giving yourself permission to play is exactly what you need to reignite your creativity. To get out of a rut. To stop worrying about what your art should be and start discovering what it could become.
Pressing strawberries was my reminder that inspiration lives everywhere. Not just in the prettiest flowers or the “right” materials. It lives in your kitchen, your garden, your curiosity. It lives in the quiet moments when you're not trying to make something good, just something real.
So here's your gentle nudge from me to you:
Try something weird. Make a mess. Try something you’ve never thought to do before & have fun doing it!
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Keep blooming,
Ashley