Making Potpourri Poster
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How To Make Potpourri
How To Make Your Own Potpourri
Make your own potpourri with flowers, leaves, spices, fruit and herbs. The potpourri will add fragrance and zest to your living space. Potpourri will be a delightfully scented floral accent in your home. The fragrant potpourris also have aromatherapy benefits like detoxification, calming, stress relief and mood elevation.
You can have fun collecting lots of flowers and leaves for your potpourri. The flowers can come from various places. You can pick flowers or buy them. You can buy potpourri flowers at a crafts or discount store. You can also ask florists if you can have some of the flowers they throw away. When you pick flowers yourself pick them in the morning after the dew has evaporated. Look for plants that are healthy, clean and pest free. Pick flowers that have recently opened. Be careful not to bruise the flowers so you don’t lose any of the essential oils.
You will need four times as many flowers as the potpourri container holds because the flower petals and leaves will shrink as they are dried. Consider potpourri ingredients like carnations, rose petals, lavender flowers, chamomile flowers, marigold, mint leaves, citrus rinds, pine needles, bay leaves, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, eucalyptus leaves, rosemary, thyme, sage, bayberry leaves, hibiscus and violets.
Here are some easy ways to dry herbs, leaves and flowers for the potpourri. You can dry them on a screen, hang them upside down or dry them in the microwave. Drying them on a screen or by hanging them could take one to three weeks. You will need a warm, dry place to dry them like an attic, shed or garage.
Air Drying
Put a screen like a window screen above and between some supports like boxes or furniture. There is more air circulation with this drying method. Arrange a layer of flowers, petals, leaves or herbs on the screen. They should not be touching each other. After a week start checking to see if they are dry. If the leaves or petals are stiff and papery they are dry. If the stems are not flexible and snap when you bend them they’re dry.
Hanging
Tie plants together with string or hold them together with rubber bands to dry them. Pick plants with different stem lengths so the blooms will be in different places. Put 3 – 7 plants together and tie them about two inches from the end of the stem. Hang them upside down in a warm dry place to dry.
Microwave
Arrange the plants, flowers, petals or leaves in a single layer between folded paper towels in the microwave. Put a small container of water in the microwave while you’re drying the potpourri ingredients. Heat them on high for 2 minutes. If they aren’t dry continue heating them for 5 – 10 second intervals until they’re dry.
Making Your Potpourri
Basic Potpourri Ingredients are:
Flowers and Leaves
Essential Oils
Spices and Herbs
A Fixative
Container with Lid
Select the flowers, leaves and spices you want to put in your potpourri. Put them in the container and sprinkle them with 5 – 10 drops of fragrant oil. Stir the leaves, petals and spices to mix the oil with the other potpourri ingredients. Add a teaspoon of fixative like musk, cedar or sandalwood oil for every two cups of petals. Stir the potpourri again. You can put the lid on the container and carefully roll or shake it to combine the ingredients. Continue mixing the oils with the other ingredients until the fragrance is mixed in and the scent is strong.
Walnut Potpourri Bowl With Ornate Pewter Lid
Walnut Potpourri Bowl With Ornate Pewter Lid
Close the lid and let the potpourri mixture steep. Stir the potpourri every other day for two weeks. You may want to add more oil or more petals and stir the potpourri again if the scent seems too weak or too strong. Then your potpourri is ready. You can put the potpourri in bowls, baskets, vases and jars to accent and scent your rooms. The potpourri can also be put in sachets for your drawers, closets and gifts.
Storing Your Potpourri
You may put the potpourri in plastic bags or airtight containers to store. Store the potpourri in a cool dark place like a basement, garage or storage room. The potpourri can be refreshed with essential oils.
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