This wonderful project that will help you preserve your wedding bouquet without having said bouquet acting as a dust collector in whatever room you have been keeping it. I, myself, was incredibly guilty of this, having had my bouquet sitting in a silver Mint Julep cup in my bathroom for about 2-3 years after my wedding… collecting dust! I didn’t want to throw it away… but didn’t know what else to do with it, either.
When I visited my mom’s house, I noticed she had a small dish of potpourri in her guest bathroom. Then, it hit me: My bouquet is nothing more than dried flowers! So I set out to create my own potpourri from my wedding memories. It’s very easy and only takes a few ingredients. In this case, I am showcasing my best friend’s bouquet that I fixed up for her birthday. Please note that depending on the size of your bouquet, you may have LOTS of potpourri and can keep or toss the excess at your own preference.
Aunt KiKi’s (as we call her) bouquet was made of several different flowers – some of which survived the drying process in whole, and some of which were used in pieces to absorb the essential oils.
Items I used:
Wedding Bouquet, including the original ribbons
good pruning scissors
5-6 whole vanilla beans (Grade B is fine)
Large Ziploc Bag (2 gallon)
Nice Dish to display
After gathering all the materials, I laid out a garbage bag on my table. This minimized cleanup of flower dust and unwanted stems after I was done. I cut off all the large, firm blossoms with pruning shears, keeping a little bit of stem intact. Other peonies and “soft” blooms were kept whole or gently broken apart unto petal pieces. Don’t worry if they crumble in your hands, you can still use them!
For other roses, I pulled off the hips and many of the guard petals for a looser look.
When making potpourri, you need a fixative. I preferred to use a natural ingredient, like whole vanilla beans that I bought from Etsy (about $9 for 15 beans) because of their fragrance and ability to hold oils. This scent combo made the potpourri smell amazing! I chopped the beans up with scissors into 1″ pieces and added them to the mix. If you don’t want to use a fragrant bean, you can also use things like FiberFix, Orris Root, or Oak Moss. Each of these has a different look, but perform pretty much the same. I also was able to cut the original ribbon in pieces and tie small bows to add to the mix. I discarded most of the stems and crumbly small bits.
After mixing the flower pieces and ribbons, I put them into a large 2 gallon Ziploc, and added about 10 drops of my Lavender Essential oil.
I gently tossed the flowers around and let them set for about 4 weeks, tossing the bag every now and then. Using a REAL name brand bag didn’t let the scent leak out and kept the flowers nicely.
After it “marinated” for a long while, I put some of the flowers in a dish with the ribbons and presented it to the birthday girl! To refresh the scent, toss in the bowl lightly, or add more of the original mix to the bowl!
Aunt Kiki can’t wait to see her new potpourri! Thanks Bear 🙂 It looks great!