Dried Flowers for Decorating

Don't you love walking into someone's home or office and sniffing the fresh scent of dried potpourri? Its fragrance heralds the season or a special holiday to create a festive atmosphere of joyful celebrations or peaceful calm. Dried flowers, herbs, and plants of all kinds can create meaningful a wide assortment of accents, decorations, and gifts. All you need are the supplies and a little bit of know-how. Start by browsing your local craft, novelty, or fabric store. You can find many types of dried leaves and blossoms that can be used for their beauteous appearance or appealing scent. Check out the many kinds that are available for various crafts and projects. Then, if you are not quite sure how to use them, invest in a dried flower book that shows you how to assemble pieces that utilize these remnants of seasons past. You might even want to take a class on working with dried plants and floral arrangements, which will add to your repertoire of information and give you plenty of ideas to work with. If you don't want to buy the kind of dried flowers that are ready for use, you can get the equipment to make your own dried floral products. There are kits on the market that show you how to collect and dry blossoms, leaves, roots, and herbs to preserve them indefinitely. Instead of tucking them into a book and perhaps forgetting about them or misplacing the book, you can use the correct utensils to do the job right and help flowers last longer. The next step might be to grow your own plants that are raised for this special purpose. Some plants, like roses and lilies, are easier to preserve than others or last longer, so these are the ones you will want to cultivate. Grow an indoor mini-garden or prepare an outdoor flowerbed, and have fun watching your plants bloom before harvesting their beauty and fragrance for long lasting craft projects. Learn how to keep insects away without using pesticide, and discourage blight naturally without the use of herbicides, which will keep your plants--and you--healthier, especially when the blossoms are dried and used in a living area. Some of the ways you can use dried floral products include making the ever-popular potpourri. After drying petals, stems, or leaves, crush them and store in small bags for future use. These can become sachets for drawers, room fresheners when heated in water, or attractive decorations when placed in glass bowls or dishes that adorn tabletops or other attractive settings in your home or place of business. Make sure that you know which plants to grow, how to blend them for the right scent, and the proper way to store and use them. Then make good use of these attractive items, or give them away as presents to others.