MAKING POTPOURRI
Making Potpourri from your dried herbs is both simple and gratifying. Potpourri is a collection of natural greenery, flower blossoms, and dried natural ingredients that invokes nostalgic memories of childhood afternoons, visits with grandparents, or romantic trysts.
I like to gather my ingredients by snipping and drying Herbs all summer long. This encourages Herbs to produce even more as the season progresses. Remember that Potpourri not only smells wonderful, it also preserves the look of the natural setting from which it comes. For that reason you should always consider five elements to its construction:
* Color gives punctuation to Potpourri. You can add color by including dried flowers, such as rosebuds, calendula blossoms, lavender, jasmine, tansy, statis, hops, or marigolds; or by adding dried cranberries or orange peel. I always scatter color over the top of my potpourri display and strategically place colorful blossoms along the sides of glass containers. You can rearrange color items any time you "toss" the Potpourri to re-distribute the fragrance.
* Texture is achieved by adding interesting twigs, bark, tiny pine cones, seed pods, nuts, or seeds; and spices such as cloves, cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, and slices of dried ginger, lemon, lime and small oranges.
* Stabilization is necessary to protect the layers of your Potpourri. You can use dried baby's breath or leafy herb sprigs, bark, and tiny pine needle clusters to keep heavier seeds and spices from settling to the bottom.
*Structure is determined by the setting in which it will be placed. Thinking about the room, container and personal taste of the recipient will determine whether your collection should contain only flower blossoms; dried items such as pine cones, pine needle clusters, and citrus; or a mixture of flowers, with spices, berries, and citrus. You may even consider adding tiny seashells to your blend.
* Fragrance of your Potpourri will be determined by the greenery you have added and by the Essential Oils you choose to augment the scent. Examples of Fragrant Herbs are leaves such as Lavender, Rose, Rosemary, Lemon Balm, Lemon Verbena, Scented Geraniums, Balm of Gilead, Patchouli, Bee Balm, and Eucalyptus; or Fir, Balsam, and Pine Needle Clusters. Scented and Essential Oils such as Rose, Citrus, Spice, Carnation, Apple, Cranberry, Sandalwood, Vetiver, Pine, Clove, Coconut, Vanilla, Gardenia, Jasmine, and Bayberry (there are many more) can be added to augment the scent and theme of your Potpourri.
Adding the oils to dried Orrisroot before adding the Orrisroot to your Potpourri is thought to preserve the fragrance.
Remember that we want to see the most natural of ingredients in Potpourri. For instance: Red or Blue dyed Bark does not occur in nature; rough, curly, brown bark looks natural and stays with the theme we want to create.
I like to gather my ingredients by snipping and drying Herbs all summer long. This encourages Herbs to produce even more as the season progresses. Remember that Potpourri not only smells wonderful, it also preserves the look of the natural setting from which it comes. For that reason you should always consider five elements to its construction:
* Color gives punctuation to Potpourri. You can add color by including dried flowers, such as rosebuds, calendula blossoms, lavender, jasmine, tansy, statis, hops, or marigolds; or by adding dried cranberries or orange peel. I always scatter color over the top of my potpourri display and strategically place colorful blossoms along the sides of glass containers. You can rearrange color items any time you "toss" the Potpourri to re-distribute the fragrance.
* Texture is achieved by adding interesting twigs, bark, tiny pine cones, seed pods, nuts, or seeds; and spices such as cloves, cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, and slices of dried ginger, lemon, lime and small oranges.
* Stabilization is necessary to protect the layers of your Potpourri. You can use dried baby's breath or leafy herb sprigs, bark, and tiny pine needle clusters to keep heavier seeds and spices from settling to the bottom.
*Structure is determined by the setting in which it will be placed. Thinking about the room, container and personal taste of the recipient will determine whether your collection should contain only flower blossoms; dried items such as pine cones, pine needle clusters, and citrus; or a mixture of flowers, with spices, berries, and citrus. You may even consider adding tiny seashells to your blend.
* Fragrance of your Potpourri will be determined by the greenery you have added and by the Essential Oils you choose to augment the scent. Examples of Fragrant Herbs are leaves such as Lavender, Rose, Rosemary, Lemon Balm, Lemon Verbena, Scented Geraniums, Balm of Gilead, Patchouli, Bee Balm, and Eucalyptus; or Fir, Balsam, and Pine Needle Clusters. Scented and Essential Oils such as Rose, Citrus, Spice, Carnation, Apple, Cranberry, Sandalwood, Vetiver, Pine, Clove, Coconut, Vanilla, Gardenia, Jasmine, and Bayberry (there are many more) can be added to augment the scent and theme of your Potpourri.
Adding the oils to dried Orrisroot before adding the Orrisroot to your Potpourri is thought to preserve the fragrance.
Remember that we want to see the most natural of ingredients in Potpourri. For instance: Red or Blue dyed Bark does not occur in nature; rough, curly, brown bark looks natural and stays with the theme we want to create.