Spring Stovetop Potpourri Gifts (& Printable Gift Tags)
Flowers, butterflies, Easter candy, and lovely pastel colors… Spring is such a beautiful time of the year! And what better way to celebrate the season than bringing some of those springtime scents into your home. Especially, the natural way! While I love a scented candle as much as the next, I try my best to diffuse essential oils or other more natural scents around my apartment when I can.
I have seen a lot of people create their own stovetop simmers, during the holiday season especially, by heating up a pot of water on the stove and adding in things like orange slices, cranberries, cinnamon sticks, etc. This homemade potpourri gives off a nice natural seasonal scent to your home for as long as you leave the pot simmering. So I thought, why not create one for this time of year!
My spring stovetop potpourri is made up of slices of lemon, lime, rosemary, lavender and chamomile buds (mostly for the cute spring look!) — a perfect citrus floral springtime scent. To make your own potpourri, all you have to do is throw all these ingredients into a pot with enough water to cover everything and heat up the stove to a low simmer. Add water as needed, so not to allow the items to burn in the pot. Your home will begin to smell fresh and clean in no time.
But if you want to take it another step forward, these homemade stovetop potpourri mixes would make a beautiful springtime gift! But in order to gift these items you will want to make sure you dehydrate everything to make the mix last longer. So follow along below on how I prepared this spring stovetop simmer to gift to a friend!
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To build these Spring Stovetop Potpourri jars, you will need the following supplies:
Dehydrated lemons & limes
Dried rosemary herbs
Dried chamomile flowers (optional)
Dried lavender (I bought this inexpensive packet from World Market)
Parchment paper
Fabric
Twine or ribbon
White cardstock paper
ETI’s Printable Spring Stovetop Potpourri Gift Tags (download below!)
HOW TO DEHYDRATE LEMONS & LIMES IN THE OVEN
You will want to make sure all the moisture has been removed from your citrus fruit before packaging it up, to avoid any mold growing in your potpourri. Here’s how I easily dehydrated my lemon and lime slices in the oven.
STEP 1: Preheat oven to 200 degrees F.
STEP 2: Wash & dry lemons and limes.
STEP 3: Carefully slice the fruit with a sharp knife into about 1/4” wide pieces. Gently remove any seeds from each slice.
STEP 4: Prepare a piece of parchment paper on your baking sheet. Arrange your lemon and lime slices flat on the parchment paper.
STEP 5: Bake the slices in the oven for 2 hours. Then flip each slice to be sure nothing is burning and everything is evenly baking.
STEP 6: Return the slices to the oven for another hour. Flip pieces again & remove any that look completely dried. The smaller thinner pieces will bake faster so be sure to remove them as they are done.
Step 7: Return the slices to the oven for another hour. And again check for any dried slices. Depending on your slice thickness, you may need to return them to the oven again, but you will probably end up baking them for about 3-5 hours total.
HOW TO DRY ROSEMARY IN THE MICROWAVE
For my rosemary herbs, I found it even easier (and much quicker) to dry these in the microwave.
STEP 1: Pull off the leaves from the main stems.
STEP 2: Lay the leaves flat between 2 pieces of paper towel on a microwaveable plate.
STEP 3: Microwave for 30 seconds.
STEP 4: Move the pieces around and return the plate to the microwave.
STEP 5: Microwave again in 20 second increments, checking between each. You will end up microwaving them for about 3-5 increments — so roughly 1.5-2.5 minutes total.
You will be able to tell the rosemary is dried once the leaves are brittle and no longer bendable without breaking.
HOW TO DRY CHAMOMILE FLOWERS IN THE OVEN
I ended up adding in chamomile buds as more of an aesthetic purpose — I thought the little white & yellow flowers really added a cute spring look to the stovetop potpourri. So this step is optional! But I did want to make sure I dried these flowers out before adding them to my gift mixes as well.
If you have the time, you can easily dry out flowers by hanging them upside down for a few weeks. But I wanted to give out my gifts while it was still springtime, so I decided to quickly dry these florals in the oven.
STEP 1: Preheat oven to 200 degrees F.
STEP 2: Cut off the bud of each flower and place them flat on a parchment paper lined sheet pan.
STEP 3: Bake the flowers for just about 30 minutes and check on them. Remove any that are already dried and return to oven if some need longer. I found these only took about 30-60 minutes to dry.
ASSEMBLING YOUR SPRING STOVETOP POTPOURRI GIFT JARS
Now it is time to add all your ingredients into your glass jars. I began by filling up each jar with as much citrus slices as I could fit. Then I sprinkled in the rosemary, chamomile flowers, and a handful of dried lavender — which I ended up just buying already dried from World Market because this packet was so inexpensive. Screw on the top and your mix is ready to go!
If you want to take your packaging up a notch, you can cover your jar with a cute little fabric topper. I cut out circles from a few scrap fabric swatches I already had on hand. I used a cereal bowl to trace the circle shape, but you basically just want a circle around 6-7” in diameter.
Next, use a rubber band to position the fabric in place over the lid of the jar. Tie a piece of twine or ribbon around the perimeter. Attach one of our ETI Printable Spring Stovetop Potpourri Gift Tags (available to download above!) and tie the twine in a bow to secure it in place. You can then go back and cut off the rubber band.
These little stovetop potpourri jars make such a perfect hostess gift for this time of year! And they are totally customizable if there are other types of ingredients you want to add to your stovetop simmer. I think any kind of citrus would be perfect this time of year, so you could add in some tangerine slices. Or maybe even some other herbs like mint or basil.
Hope this idea has inspired you to bring a bit of the springtime scents into your home this season! xo Rachael
