Friday 6 December 2013

Hostess Gifts made easy!!

 Welcome!!

                A simple, easy project ,
      A  homemade  gift that everyone could use.

Christmas Potpourri........



ingredients you will need:

dried orange slices
dried apple slices
cinnamon sticks
star of anise
small pine cones
 dried lemon peel
whole cloves

I dry my own orange slices......
so easy to do........
slice them thin and then lay them on parchment
paper on a cookie sheet..........
at low temp in the oven 200 degrees .........
for about 2 hours.



Do the same with the apple slices.........

Once your fruit has dried..........
gather the rest of the ingredients....


I went out and picked my pinecones then washed them thoroughly.........
Let them dry in a warm oven ...... same as your orange slices............

Placed all my ingredients into a plastic bag...
give it a good shake then leave it  for about a week 
so the aroma or scents could take on the pinecones.

While this was curring...... I went about making
Cinnamon Dough shapes.......

These are used as tags or can go on the tree....

The ingredients you will need:
1 cup of applesauce....
1 3/4 cup of cinnamon.......
cookie sheet .....
parchment paper....


In a bowl add these ingredients.....
mix till the applesauce becomes dough....
roll out onto a flat surface and then 

Knead together .......   

Roll out a bit of dough to 1/4 " thickness and 
then use your cookie cutters to make the shapes.

I used stars, hearts and Christmas trees.

Use a straw to make a hole in the dough that
can be used to hang your ornament.

Lay out your shapes on parchment paper /cookie sheet and dry in a warm oven at 200 degrees  
turning them once, for 2 hours............

Once they have cooled you can add your 
hanger.......
I used twine........
I also used a chalk pen and added some sayings...

Now it's time to assemble your bags.

I use clear cello and cut them into squares....

then take a little bit of your potpourri
in the centre of the square..............
pull up the sides and tie tightly with raffia....
finish it off with a tag.........

Have fun with it.............


      Here are mine already to give out ........

          

           As always thanks for stopping by  
                         Linda


8 comments:

  1. Great idea - I love that Christmassy smell - especially in a room heated by a wood stove.

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  2. What a great hostess gift!! I might have to make some for myself too! LOL
    ~Des

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  3. What a wonderful homemade gift idea! I bet they smell wonderful! You are so creative. I'm sure that took some time to put together.

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  4. I would love to get something wonderful like this instead of the obligatory bottle of wine. Seeing this brings back fond memories of making my own with the Oshawa Garden Club - we used to go to Cullen Gardens every week and trim the roses and gather the flowerheads to dry - in the fall we would take them and add to it with some other ingredients and made our own in big huge garbage bags (we had that much). My garage smelled awesome while it "fermented". Nice.

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  5. Just love it…and such a great idea for gifts…I can just imagine the wonderful smell!

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  6. What a great idea, Linda! And I've never heard of doing that with apple sauce & cinnamon before...I need to pin this so I can try it, hopefully I have time for this year. Thanks so much for sharing this!
    Debbie :)

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