How to Make Potpourri!

Potpourri is so easy to make and adds a subtle, natural ambience to your environment!

Potpourri adds fragrance to any room in your house or for your office
Once your potpourri is mixed, you can layer it in glass containers or place it in baskets, decoupage boxes, ceramics, silver dishes or…

Potpourri can be made from any scented plants – flowers, fruits, herbs, barks and spices
It is the blending of your ingredients that produces the fragrance to enhance the atmosphere
of your rooms
To make potpourri, pick your ingredients
For each quart of flower petals/floral materials use 2 tablespoons of a fixative 
Use essential or fragrance oils to create the intensity of scent you wish to create

You can make potpourri with many kinds of ingredients…
Flower petals such as lavender, roses, tulips, freesia and marigolds add color as well as
scent to your mixture
Ingredients such as herbs, spices, dried citrus peel, seeds, bark and tiny pinecones add
variety to the texture 
Small, whole dried flowers like baby rosebuds give depth and variety of size
Potpourri made only with petals tends to look like textured fabric 
Such rainbow-like layers of different kinds of flowers can be very beautiful 
While there is nothing wrong with using just petals, combining petals with other floral material
gives a more three-dimensional result

Some of the flowers commonly used in potpourris are:

            Roses

            Geraniums

            Jasmine

            Orange blossoms

            Wallflowers

            Lilac

            Honeysuckle

            Violets

            Hyacinths

            Lily of the Valley

Magnolia

            Gardenia

Since it preserves the scent, the fixative you use is a vital element in a potpourri recipe 
Some fixatives you could use are powdered orris root, oak moss, cellulose, ground gum,
benzoin or fiberfix
The fixative absorbs and retains the volatile scented essences of your ingredients 
Essential oils or fragrance oils are used to reinforce the natural perfumes and to boost the scent 
Without adequate fixative, the life goes out of potpourri very quickly

 Sample Potpourri Recipe

The actual combinations you can use in potpourri are limited only by your imagination…
here is an easy “ to do” example to get you started on what can become an enthralling hobby