pressing flowers.

[closeto-me.livejournal.com]

so, my sister just got married this past weekend and i was her maid of honor. furthermore, i was the only single woman at the wedding, so i earned the bouquet by default. haha. anyway, she asked me to press her bouquet so that she could keep a couple of the roses..

.. which means i have a couple of questions about pressing flowers. most of the things i am reading say that it is more difficult to press larger flowers, such as roses. can it still be done a simple way, like by pressing them in a book? also, most of them say to press freshly picked flowers, but we bought these flowers from a shop and made the bouquet ourselves. needless to say, they were not freshly picked. furthermore, we bought them last friday and they were made into a bouquet on saturday and then have endured a plane ride from california to texas and much more. since then, they have just been hanging upside down, as i have not quite been sure what to do with them. i am afraid wait much longer in case something happens and i end up not being able to press them because i know it means a lot to my sister.

what would you guys recommend i do to get the best possible pressed roses that i can? it would help if the process was relatively fool-proof, but i can probably endure something complicated if thats what it takes. thanks in advance for your help!