Thank you all for sharing. I have pressed flowers in books and then totally forgotten them until years later! In taxonomic botany, we made presses with layers of heavy blotting paper. It came in large sheets that we cut in half to make the pages. It is gray and pulpy looking. Between those layers we often used paper towels, but sometimes nothing. The idea was to dry things well and fast for the University’s herbarium collection. All the pages were placed between two pieces of wood cut to size and the whole thing was held together with two cinching type straps. Mine are industrial types, but I think luggage straps might work. The advantage of such a press over a book, is that nothing falls out and no one will accidentally knock it open, look inside, toss it out, etc. The straps take the place of heavy weights.
Colleen in NE Calif.