Making Your Own Potpourri
By Michael
Russell
Making your own potpourri is easy and fun. It can be as simple
as a bowl of lavender buds, or a mass of different dried botanicals
with fragrance oils. Any craft store will carry a selection of
dried botanicals that you can use, along with fragrance oils. You
can use potpourri oil, candle scent or soap scent for your
potpourri.
Think about the size of the container you need to fill. Larger
dried flowers such as globe flowers or strawflowers will take up
more space than chamomile or lavender. You can either use all
natural botanicals, or dyed varieties, depending on what you want
the finished look to be. For more inexpensive potpourri, you can
use filler made of wood chips, or wood curls. These will soak up
scent and cost less than the dried florals. Common scent fixatives
used in potpourri are orris root, oakmoss or cellulose fiber. These
absorbent materials will soak up your fragrance and you don't have
to worry about oil spots on delicate botanicals.
Here are several recipes and design ideas for your own
potpourri.
Rose Garden. Use a quarter cup of fixative (orris root, oak moss
or cellulose fiber) and mix with a teaspoon of rose fragrance oil.
Let this sit and absorb while you mix the rest of the botanicals.
In another bowl, toss together one cup of whole rose buds (any
color), one cup of rose petals (any color), half cup of chamomile
flowers, half cup of white statice, one quarter cup of rosehips and
a handful of eucalyptus leaves for green color. Blend with the
fixative.
Holiday Pine. Mix a quarter cup of fixative with a teaspoon of
pine fragrance and set aside. For the botanical mix, use 1 cup of
miniature pine cones, quarter cup of rosemary leaves, half cup of
rose hips and colored globe flowers in red and green. For an extra
festive touch, spray paint half of the miniature pine cones with
gold spray paint.
Lavender sachet. For this, you need to purchase some tulle
circles or sachet bags at a craft store. Mix an eighth cup of
fixative with half teaspoon of lavender essential oil. For the
sachet, you want small pieces of botanicals, since they aren't very
big. Mix together one cup of lavender buds, half cup of chamomile
flowers and add the fixative. Pour into the sachet bag, or for the
tulle circle, place the potpourri in the center of the circle,
gather it up and tie with a pretty ribbon. You can use these
sachets in closets or a dresser drawer.
You can package your potpourri as gifts in either gusseted
cellophane bags tied with a pretty ribbon, or a fancy glass jar
with a lid. To get the most out of your potpourri, keep it in a
covered container until you want to scent the room, then remove the
cover. This will preserve the scent for a longer time. As the scent
fades on your potpourri, you can place it in a zip top bag and add
fifteen to twenty drops of fragrance oil to the material. Shake
well and let it sit overnight before placing back in your
container.
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