Pressed flower with Monogram

After the funeral of my husband's 34-year-old cousin, I took a rose from the spray sent by all of the cousins. I didn't know at the time what I would do with it, but I knew I wanted to do something for his aunt and uncle. I decided to try pressing the flower into a frame. Here are the instructions for how I did it and how it turned out.

I first let the rose dry about 3 weeks hanging upside down. You want to do this project with the petals are no longer wet, but still soft enough to work with. The humidity in your home will certainly affect this process.

I started with cutting her initial in vinyl adhesive on my Cricut. I used the Storybook cartridge and cut a 2 1/2" letter. Adhere the negative vinyl to the glass so that you will be etching the letter onto it.

I used Armour Etch and followed the directions on the bottle.
Cut a background for the frame. I used the front sheet out of the frame as a template and cut out cardstock. You could use fabric also, but with this small a frame, I knew very little of the background would actually show.
I then put on a couple pieces of scrapbook adhesive to the back and...
attached it to the inside of the back on the frame. This way when I laid the back onto the flowers, I didn't have to worry about it sliding around.

This is what it looks like in the frame without the glass or the flower.
When the time is up on the Armor Etch, clean the glass as instructed. Then remove the vinyl adhesive and clean the glass completely.
Lay the glass into the frame.
Pull the dried petals from the stem. Starting with the smallest petals, begin layering them around the glass. Remember you are working backwards, so you will want the pretty side of the petal down.
After all of the petals are laid on the glass, carefully lay the back of the frame over the petals, making sure they don't shift, and secure it.
This is the finished product:

I was able to give it to them Saturday night and it was very sweet. Their precious daughter had a short, but loving life. I hope this little gift is a reminder of her and how much her family loved her.