DIY Potpourri

For a few weeks I was trying to find potpourri to put in my bathrooms. I couldn’t find any and the flowers in my vase were starting to droop when I had the lightbulb moment to make my own potpourri. I looked it up online and found out it’s fairly easy to do and I thought this would be such a great way to put dying flowers to use before getting rid of them. Kind of give them a second life. Plus I thought this would be a cool thing to do every few months. Make my own potpourri, then get rid of it in a few months and make a new batch.

I found directions from Popsugar and I loosely followed those. Basically all you have to do is take your flowers – either cut the heads off whole or take petals – I did a combo of both. Lay them in a single layer of parchment paper on a baking sheet. Then, spritz the flowers with a mixture of water and essential oils of your choice. I love the smell of lavender and an essential oil spray that I was sent last year is actually made of pure essential oil so I just used that! It was so convenient instead of finding a spray bottle to spritz the flowers with! Dry the flowers in the oven at 200. The directions say to keep it in the oven for 2 hours. The flowers should be dry, but not burnt. I actually only needed to keep them in there for an hour to get the desired effect, so I would just keep checking on your flowers.

Side note – how perfect are these colors for Valentine’s? As mentioned above, I did a combination of taking petals and whole heads from the flowers. I tried to get a good variety. After I cut them, spritzed them, dried them in the oven, and spritzed again, I let them cool before taking them off the pan and putting them in this acrylic tray. I found this tray at Bed, Bath, & Beyond. It’s technically a towel holder (I guess to hold hand towels on your counter?) but I thought it was a cute potpourri holder. The sign is one I found at Michaels and I thought it would be an adorable sign to put by potpourri since it says “Stop and smell the flowers”. I can’t find the exact one, but I found some other cute ones on Etsy that I will link to below!

As you can see, this was extremely easy to do! You can do any flowers, any scents you want – it’s entirely customizable. You can also add in things like cinnamon sticks or fresh lavender. You can also do slices of citrus fruits. The possibilities are endless!

I’ll probably keep this one until the spring and then make a new batch with flowers that are on their way out, then.

Oh yeah, and remember when I said I made my own potpourri because I couldn’t find any at the store? Of course, I found some the day I made mine! I bought some to put in a glass bowl in my master bath and I put my DIY potpourri on my little cabinet in my guest bath.

Have you ever made your own potpourri?