I tried my hand at seaweed pressing - this year (2024). This is a little gallery of my pressed seaweeds with notes about my methods and experience.
Broken/storm-wash seaweed is ideal to use. When foraging seaweed, check what is allowed in your area. I've read a few tips for foraging seaweed sustainably: Rather than 'uprooting' a whole seaweed, use scissors to cut from the top third of growth so the seaweed can regrow. Don't take more than you will use, and don't take too much from one area of growth. It's better to take 'older' looking pieces than new, young growth.
After some vague googling I mostly followed the instructions of this video from the wildlife trust. Before pressing I left the seaweed to sit in some water for a little bit and then rinsed it gently which removed little creatures. I think this also reduced the smell. I slid thick paper into a tray of water and arranged the seaweed with a paintbrush. I found this very calming. After arranging the seaweeds I dabbed them as dry as possible with kitchen towel.
I placed kitchen towel over the pressed seaweed, then used a few layers of newspaper above and underneath them to absorb excess water. In retrospect, I should have used tissue paper directly above the seaweed to prevent sticking. I piled lots of large books on top of the newspaper and left them to press for almost a month - the finer ones definitely didn't need this long, though. A flower pressing clamp would have been ideal for this.
Seaweeds fall into 3 categories: red, green, and brown. I found that I had the best results from delicate red seaweeds, although I'm a fan of the tissue-papery look of the green seaweeds too. The thick, kelpy, brown seaweeds were harder to press, I found they didn't stick well to the paper and one had even started to go mouldy under my pile of books.
Victorian seaweed
