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Thursday 8 January 2015

dried orange slice pot pourri ...

Today I'm busy up-cycling my Christmas decorations. No, really ... I'm not joking.

Do you remember how I made dried orange slice and cinnamon stick Christmas tree decorations back in the heady days of December?  Well I've up-cycled them into some pot pourri. Take a look at this:


It smells amazing.



I took the orange slices that had been hanging on the tree over the holidays and are now perfectly dried, de-threaded the hessian strings that I'd use to hang them on the branches, unwrapped their ribbons and did the same with the cinnamon sticks.

Then I found a great big plastic box that Emi had taken to school filled with sweets for his friends on his birthday. It's nothing special; just something that I'd got on my shelves.


I placed the orange slices and cinnamon sticks in my plastic box, and remembered some sweet little pine cones that I'd picked up on my travels during the summer. I'd got those stashed away in a glass jar to save and intensify their lovely pine smell.

Then I tipped in the remains of my jar of star anise, and had a sniff. It was already beginning to smell lovely with the liquorice notes of the star anise blending with the fresh, clean smell of the pine cones. 

I remembered a bunch of flowers that someone had brought for a dinner party back in May. They were lovely: all kinds of exotic thistle-like flowers with sea lavender. I'd thought at the time that they'd dry nicely, so, when their water reservoir had dried up, I placed them on a shelf and just left nature to take its course. 


I harvested a few thistle-like flower heads, some sea lavender and a rather lovely, faded rose to add to the mix.


It was starting to look nice, wasn't it?

But I needed to add something more in the fragrance department, so I got out a neat little bottle of Sweet Orange Essential Oil and added a few drops of that to big up the smell.


Mmmh ... now it was smelling much better.

Next I added a level half teaspoonful of Orris Root powder, my fixative of choice when making pot pourri. It adds a slight violet-fragrance of its own and helps preserve and stabilise the scent of any other essential oils that you use. You can buy it on-line.

I had another little play to check how all the bits looked when they were displayed together.


And then I put it all back in the plastic sweet box and closed the lid so that the scent can infuse and mature for several weeks before I take it out to use it for real.

As you can see it was a super easy thing to make, and it looks - and smells - just as good as anything you'd buy in the shops.

All the best for now,

Bonny x

As shared on Friday Finds and Creative Mondays

5 comments:

  1. I can almost smell that from here.

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  2. It looks beautiful and I am sure it smells wonderful too!

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  3. it looks pretty and I'm sure it smells lovely as well. the perfect thing for a house full of winter blues.

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  4. oh what a perfect way to stretch out those Christmas decorations ... looks like it smells wonderful!

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  5. Thank you so much for all the tips!!!

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