A Victorian Inspired Paperweight Featuring Dried Baby's Breath and Statice

This paperweight was made using some of the small flowers I dried in my earlier blog post (Six Easy Steps to Creating Beautiful, Dried Flowers).

The supplies I used for this project are shown above.  They include tacky glue, foam mounting squares, a swatch of paper to use as the background, some dried flowers, and a brass heart finding.

Once again, I'm using the Heirloom Dome paperweight kit from our shop at PhotoWeights.com.  This is my favorite of the domes we carry because of the beaded design that frames the display area.

The paper I chose for the background came off an old scrapbook cover I purchased to salvage for my craft projects.  If you prefer, you can use decorative scrapbook paper.

TIP:  If you like to go to flea markets and antique shops as much as I do, look for items you can use as backgrounds in your designs such as album covers, tattered books, embossed document folders, and other things covered in leather, textured paper, and fabric.

Place the adhesive side of the mounting board (included with each paperweight kit) onto the reverse side of your background paper.

Using a pair of scissors, trim any paper that overlaps the edge of the mounting board.

Place a double-sided, foam mounting square in the center of the background.  (If you're using old paper, make sure the adhesive will bond to it properly.)  Leave the protective paper over the top surface of the mounting square to keep the adhesive clean.

Apply glue around the perimeter of the mounting square.   The width of your glue pattern will be determined by the length of the flowers' stems and the size of the decorative piece (brass heart) you place over the flowers.

Begin arranging your flowers around the mounting square, making sure each stem is placed directly in the glue.

Layer your flowers until you're happy with the pattern and coverage.  Make sure the flowers aren't thick enough to apply pressure to the back of the decorative piece (brass heart).

After the glue has dried completely, gently tap the edge of the mounting board onto your work surface to remove any loose particles from the flowers.  You can also use a few puffs of air from an air canister.

To finish your design, remove the protective paper covering the adhesive on the mounting square.  After you've cleaned the back of your decorative piece (brass heart) with rubbing alcohol or glass cleaner, gently position it onto the mounting square and press down to secure.

Center the finished design over the adhesive side of the bottom pad and gently press down to secure.

After you've cleaned your paperweight with glass cleaner, place the bottom pad face-down onto the base of the paperweight.

The brass heart I used for this paperweight has a fairly flat back which provided the perfect surface for an adhesive mounting square.  If you'd to use something that has a textured or curved back, such as a piece of costume jewelry, you could glue one or more small wood or plastic cubes to the back to act as risers which would allow you to secure the item to the background while providing enough space to tuck the flowers underneath.