These Make Good Scents

Day 53: Long before the word "potpourri" came to designate those overpoweringly odorous bowls of wood chips and dyed flower petals now sold alongside scented candles, your grandmother probably made at least one of the items pictured above to put in her "dainties" drawer both for their fragrance and/or as a moth deterrent. They kept their scents much longer, as you'll see as I describe each one.

The "lavender bottles" (yes, that's what they're called) are something I made with homegrown lavender about 25 years ago and still have their fragrance, although it's faint. As complicated as they look, the process for creating them is fairly simple, although care must be taken not to break the stems, which are very brittle even when freshly picked. Pick a dozen or so spikes with long stems, tie them with heavy thread just below the flowers, then carefully bend the stems back. Weave lavender-coloured ribbon in a simple over-and-under pattern until the flower heads are entirely covered. Tie the remaining ribbon in a bow, and you're done.

A pomander is made by studding an orange with whole cloves, as tightly packed together as is possible, and then it can be placed in a net bag if desired. The orange will dry out, shrinking as much as the cloves will allow, and holding them in place. I made mine about 50 years ago, and it still perfumes my undies drawer, albeit lightly.

Last of all are rose beads, a versatile and popular Victorian-era project which can be put in with clothing or even worn as a bracelet or necklace. I made this set at least 50 years ago, and they are still fragrant. Some people say that the ones their grandma made in 1900 still have a light fragrance. They're a bit more complicated to make than the lavender bottles or the orange pomander, though. First of all, you'll need an old, rusty cast-iron frying pan and a handful of rusty nails, the rustier the better for both. Then you'll need to gather rose petals, a lot of rose petals, a huge amount of rose petals, way more rose petals than you think you'll ever need. Wild roses are best, but any strong-smelling rose will do. Grind them with a mortar and pestle if you have the tools. If not, crush them with a rock, cave-man style. Put them in the rusty frying pan with the nails and stir them up good. Every day for the next several weeks, stir them again, adding a little water if they start to dry out. Once they're thoroughly blackened, they're ready to be shaped. Roll up gobs of rose-petal mush to form balls about twice the size you want them to be when dry. Stick a round toothpick through each ball, and poke one end into a piece of styrofoam or a bowl of sand and let them dry thoroughly (give 'em a month or so). Remove the toothpicks carefully, twisting to release them from the dried petal mush. You'll lose a few, so make extra.

Any one or all of these make more scents than buying stinky potpourri!

Victorian Paper Beads

Day 24: While digging around in my crafts cupboards a few days ago, search for something I seem to have irretrievably mislaid, I came across the box containing my paper bead-making kit. "Huh," I said, "now that's something I haven't done in a while." Out it came, and within a minute or two at most, I was happily making paper beads at the kitchen table.

Now while this project can be done using any type of rod around which to wind the beads, having a tool specifically designed for the purpose makes it easier. Mine cost less than $10 (admittedly, probably at least five years ago) and was made by a Hong Kong-based company called Green Creativity. Prior to purchasing it, I accomplished exactly the same end result with only a little more work using a quilling needle..."quilLing," not "quilTing"...i.e., a pointy thing in a handle. You could use a small dowel, a wooden barbecue skewer, a metal rod, anything with a uniform diameter. Regardless of what tool you use, fancy or simple, you will also need paper. The beads in the photo above were made from origami paper and coloured pages out of a magazine, in either case not a large expense. I use a Fiskars paper cutter to make my strips, but they can be cut with scissors as well. For these beads, the paper strips need to be 8 inches long, 5/8" on the wide end, tapering down to a blunt point. Start winding at the thick end and, keeping the winds centered over the previous ones, continue until you have roughly two inches of the narrow end left to wind on. Apply a light film of craft glue (I use Aleene's Tacky Glue) to the underside and continue to wind to the end. Carefully slide your bead off the rod/tool, pinch it slightly to round the center hole, insert an appropriately-sized object in the hole to smooth out any loose coils inside and then let it dry. You've made your first bead in less time than it took to read this, so make some more. When you have as many as you want, you can finish them in a variety of ways. The simplest is to apply a thin layer of glue to the exterior, but if you want to get fancy, you can varnish them, treat them with wood hardener, apply paints, etc. Sometimes I roll them in glass frit (finely ground glass) while the glue/varnish is wet. This will give them a little texture and sparkle, and closely imitates the beads my grandmother once wore, a few of which I still own, tucked safely away in a jewelry box. As crafts go, this is about the cheapest fun you can have, plus it recycles magazines in a way to make a giftable product.