The Pressed Garden with Flower Press Studio (Two)
September 19 - 21, 2025

Black Cat Farm | Boulder, Colorado
15 Students
No Experience Necessary ~ Just a Love for Flowers

Simple illustration of a leafy branch with small leaves and buds.

The heart of this retreat is exploring the magic of the pressing flowers, vegetables, and other garden treasures.

We’ll spend three delightful and inspired days learning the art of pressing a gorgeous variety of flowers, vegetables, and other garden treasures. We will use our handmade flower presses made by Rachel and Keith throughout the three days, diving into the details and techniques to approach flowers, herbs, and blooms of all shapes and sizes. We’ll  learn what to look for in choosing what to press and the techniques to achieve a successful pressing result, creating a collection of pressed specimens ready for collage, cyanotype printed tea towels, and any other application you can dream up to give these preserved blooms a home.

    • Handmade flower press for each student made by Rachel & Keith 

    • Complimentary enrollment in Flower Press Studio’s online How to Press Flower Course

    • Use of pre-pressed flowers during the retreat

    • Fresh farm-to-table organic meals

    • Handcrafted tea blends each day

    • The energy of growth and renewal of being on a working farm

    • Gentle body movement session 

A woman sits on the floor holding a pink mug, looking at a small kitten standing on the floor in front of her. Behind her, a black wall with a large colorful floral artwork, and a string of pink and white flowers hanging on the wall. To her left, a yellow stool with a wooden box and a small vase with flowers, and a leopard-print mug.
Person holding a large artwork composed of pressed and dried colorful flowers arranged in an intricate pattern.
Two people, a man and a woman, stand on either side of a table displaying three colorful floral artwork pieces in a rustic, well-lit room with hanging lantern-style lights.
A simple illustration of a leafy branch with small leaves.

About the Artists | Keith Kralik & Rachel Parri

Our pressed flower adventure started with flowers grown in our backyard urban garden in Denver, CO.  In Spring 2020, we started pressing poppies and other wildflowers from seeds we scattered in our yard and Keith learned how to make frames from scrap wood.

In late 2021, we threw together a website for our newly imagined business, plunging ourselves into the world of bridal bouquet preservation, wholly unprepared as to what our first year in business would bring.  Our first year was full of many ups and downs, but ultimately our attention to detail and creativity helped us to organically morph into a business that brings both of us a lot of joy with just the right amount of challenges.

Flower Press Studio allows us to get outside in the garden, and get more involved with a local community of makers, florists, and flower farmers to express our authenticity using organic materials grown from our mother earth.

Each year, we collaborate with beautiful, independently owned flower farms that serve their local communities.  We preserve their seasonal blooms in the form of pressed flower art.  We now reside in the agriculturally rich North Fork Valley in Paonia, CO with our cat, Ivy.  When we aren’t pressing flowers, we are working on our land, fixing up our log cabin, and trying to enjoy everything these Colorado mountains have to offer. 

@flowerpressstudio_
flowerpressstudio.com

A wooden tray with several plates of tamales filled with black and white rice, wrapped in banana leaves, on a wooden table next to a potted plant with yellow and pink flowers.
A man and woman smiling and embracing outdoors in a garden, holding a plant. The man is wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, and the woman has her arm around him. There are trees, plants, and a hilly landscape in the background, with a small shed nearby.

The Venue: Black Cat Organic Farm

Black Cat Farm ~ a place where all are welcome and the seeds of hope surround you. Nestled among the rolling fields just outside Boulder, Colorado, this rustic working farm is home to our Black Cat Makerie retreats. Tucked away from the rush of the world, time stands still. The beauty here isn’t curated, but rather defined by the ever-changing seasons and the pulse of growth and possibility at every turn. No matter where you are coming from or which season of life you find yourself in, you’ll feel the embrace of something so grounding and deeply authentic you might not ever forget it.

Using Black Cat’s Certified Organic farm as a source of creativity, Chef Eric Skokan creates an award-winning cuisine vibrant with seasonality. The kitchen draws heavily from the farm’s more than 250 varieties of organic vegetables, legumes, grains, herbs and flowers, as well as its large flock of heritage sheep and its robust population of heritage pigs, paving the way for a limitless palette of flavors, colors, and textures from which to build each food experience. The farm team devotes hours every day to harvesting ingredients, and then crafting them into outstanding dishes that mirror what is thriving in the fields. We can’t wait for you to experience it all for yourself!

Retreat Schedule

Friday, September 19th

8:30am to 4pm

Saturday, September 20th

9am to 4pm
6pm to 9pm (Optional Black Cat Farmstead Dinner)

Sunday, September 21st

9am to 3:30pm

 

Retreat Experience Pricing

$2,295

includes

3 full creative workshop days
(18 hours of instruction)
..
all workshop materials
including a handmade flower press
..
homemade herbal tea
..
three morning snacks
..
three farm-to-table lunches
..
three afternoon snacks
..
online class page with all the details and inspiration about this retreat
..
access to flower press studio’s online class (valued at $150)
..
special gift

..
*optional Black Cat Farmstead dinner + $200

Questions? See our FAQs. We’re happy to work with you on a custom payment plan; email ali@themakerie.com.

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