DIY Christmas Potpourri: Easy DIY Ideas

Before the Advent wreath and the Christmas centerpiece, even before the Christmas tree decoration, we bring out the Christmas potpourri. Made with dried plants, spices and essential oils, the latter is an original way to invite nature into your home, while perfuming your interior. Perfect for any time of year, potpourri is particularly suitable for Christmas and New Year. Chic, eco-friendly and good for the budget, it combines several ingredients and colors and is very easy to make. In two steps and three movements, you can make yourself one without worries! Demo!

Here's how to make a decorative and scented Christmas potpourri without difficulty

Making a Christmas potpourri is not only good for the budget, but also good for your morale. This quick and easy DIY allows you to stay connected to nature and produce all kinds of scents and moods. It's also a great way to keep the little ones busy. So, after returning from your usual stroll, take advantage of your finds by transforming them into a pretty scented decoration for the holidays. We give you the leads to follow to make a successful homemade Christmas potpourri. Once made, it can be slipped into the Women's Advent calendar or offered as a plate gift to your guests.

You don't have to be a DIY expert to make a homemade Christmas potpourri. Eco-friendly and customizable at will, the recipe for a successful potpourri is as easy as pie! It's almost just a matter of letting greens and spices dry and putting them in a pretty glass container. So, it's the picking that is important and there are no rules applied. You can therefore combine several different ingredients without worrying: whole petals or flowers, cinnamon sticks, lemon zest, fir or rosemary branches, eucalyptus leaves, dried citrus fruits, dehydrated red berries, etc. Let yourself go! You are spoiled for choice. Just take a little walk in the woods or rummage through the kitchen drawers and voila!

Before starting the harvest, get a secateurs and a small crate to store your finds. And there you are, you are ready for your little adventure. So that your DIY potpourri is rich and sufficiently fragrant, favor fragrant and colorful flowers such as roses, calendula, carnation heads and borage. And since it must also be aesthetic, garnish it with leaves and branches. Unearth branches of thyme, lavender or eucalyptus, lemongrass, mint or ivy leaves which preserve their shine very well when dried. In short, it is your decorative desires and the natural resources that dictate the choice of ingredients. Some do-it-yourselfers don't hesitate to add pine cones, hazelnuts, vegetable moss or even bark.

After the walk, rummage through your kitchen drawers, probably for other interesting ingredients that you can use to make your potpourri a success: fruits, vegetables, cinnamon sticks, ginger root, etc. In our case, a few slices of dried lemon or orange do the trick very well. To prepare them yourself, just cut them 0.5 cm thick, put them on the rack of your oven and let them dry on fanatic heat at 90 ° C for about 2 hours. At half time, don't forget to turn them. Finally, let them cool in a dry place.

Fresh or dehydrated, the selected ingredients should be finally brought together and mixed in an airtight glass jar or large glass bowl with a lid. In order to preserve the aromas, do not hesitate to add a little iris powder which served as an excellent hairspray for the preparation of our homemade dry shampoo recipes. If you find that your DIY Christmas potpourri isn't fragrant enough, add a few drops of essential oils to it and stir everything well so that the aromas are distributed throughout. Here too, your desires and preferences should lead the way. Lavender, lemongrass, orange, tangerine or rose, you are spoiled for choice to revive your homemade potpourri.

Quick and easy Christmas potpourri with aromas of oranges and cloves

In our next tutorial, the traditional potpourri is inspired by the amber apple and intertwines fir branches, red berries and pine cones in a most fragrant Christmas centerpiece. To make it yourself, here is the full ingredient list:

• 5 nice firm oranges (or another citrus fruit)
• 1 good handful of cloves
• toothpick
• fresh cut fir branches
• cones
• red berries

Start by making small holes in the peel of the citrus fruits, making a nice pattern as shown above, then insert the cloves into them. Once your oranges are dressed, place them in a nice tray with the rest of the ingredients. In potpourri or as a decoration for the tree, these decorated citrus fruits will not only perfume your interior space, but also bring back the sweet memories of your childhood.

Note: This potpourri should last up to two weeks depending on the firmness of the citrus and where it is placed.

Homemade potpourri like a Christmas ball

Materials needed:

• transparent plastic Christmas balls
• dried orange slices
• cinnamon sticks
• anise
• pine needles
• eucalyptus leaves
• red berries
• cloves
• rosemary
• nutmeg
• glitter rope

Start by drying the indicated ingredients. For this purpose, two options are available to you: the school of patience and that of speed. If you are not in a rush, you can put your vegetables and spices in a dry, well-ventilated place and let them sit there for a few weeks or until they become crunchy.

To save time, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place the indicated ingredients on it. Bake at 100 ° C for 1 hour, watching the drying. Keep in mind that the process takes longer for citrus fruits than for petals and leaves. If necessary, take these and prolong the drying of citrus fruits. Now all you have to do is fill the transparent balls with the dehydrated ingredients and hang them on the tree with the glittery cord. You can also give them as a plate gift.

Tip: If you want to use fresh ingredients, please make your potpourris Christmas baubles the same day you give them away.

How to use Christmas potpourri to perfume the whole house?

The end of year celebrations are a magical time for the whole family and that is why we must make the most of it. Question to put you in the festive atmosphere, here is how to perfume your interior in two steps and three movements! Open your homemade potpourri and pour all the ingredients into a saucepan filled with water. You can add a few bags of your favorite tea to it. Simmer everything over low heat for an hour and voila! Finally, your home will never have smelled so good. Natural and 100% ecological, this perfume is harmless to health, unlike the commercial versions.

A simpler variant will be to remove the cooking step and transfer the aromatic mixture to an open container so that it can perfume the whole room. Use small glass jars or fabric bags to transform the potpourri into original place cards or DIY gifts to give to loved ones.

Note: less aesthetic, airtight plastic bags are more preferable than fabric ones because they retain the scent of the ingredients better.

Image credit: tidbits-cami.com

bybrittanygoldwyn.com

theecohub.ca