ButtonWillowCottage

Plainly Beautiful

"Plainness has its peculiar temptations quite as much as beauty."

~George Eliot

A Spring Love Story's Summer Finale

Oh Dear Me! Didn't I tell you? Well, they'll be living happily ever after!

Recipes For A Summer's Potpourri

Late Summer Mix

10 marigold blossoms

6 Lemon Scented Geranium leaves

5 rose blossoms

2 tsp dried lavender

2 tsp orrisroot

2 drops Rosewood essential oil

2 drops Lemon essential oil

Autumn Mix

1/4 cup dried apple slices (see note)

1/2 cup pink and red carnation petals

1/4 cup dried sweet woodruff leaves

2 tbsp crumbled cinnamon or one 3" cinnamon stick

1 whole nutmeg, grated (1 1/2 tsp.)

1 tbsp whole cloves

1 tbsp julienne orange peel

2 tsp orrisroot

3 drops of cinnamon or vanilla scented oil

Note: To dry apples, slice paper thin and place slices in a single layer on a baking sheet in 150 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Winter Mix

1/2 cup bayberry leaves

1/2 cup snipped balsam needles

1/2 cup miniature pine cones

1/2 cup rose hips

2 tsp orrisroot

2 drops pine essential oil

Of course all of these recipes can be doubled, tripled...whatever your needs or desires. And have fun coming up with your own mixes! Oh, and by the way, wouldn't it be delicious to spend a rainy summer afternoon (for those of you who are fortunate enough to have rain in summer!) mixing up the Autumn or Winter recipes and then tucking them away in anticipation of bringing them out once those cozy seasons are upon us? Sounds positively lovely to us!

Have fun and have a beautiful weekend!

Mixing A Summer's Potpourri

Just as in gathering your flowers, mixing your potpourri should be a sensory pleasure. Enjoyed when you can linger over the process, fragrances and tactile sensations. While mixing, remember your garden, the sunny days, it's sights and sounds. The enjoyment of growing and harvesting. Put on some music, gather your children to help mix or just to observe with wide eyes, and you have more than just a recipe for potpourri... you have the makings of a lovely summer afternoon.

When you're sure that all your plant material is very dry combine them in a large bowl or other suitable container as long as it's not metal. Be aware, that due to the essential oils, the container you mix in will be fairly permanently scented. Choose wisely! At ButtonWillow we've chosen a pretty bowl that is forever the Cottage Potpourri Mixing Bowl! Add your spices, fixatives and essential oils to this (trying to get as much of the oils on the fixative as possible), then mix gently until well blended. (Note: Some may wish to wear a dust mask during this blending process so as not to aggravate fragile sinuses or allergies).

Seal and store in a cool, dark place for three to six weeks. You can cover your bowl with plastic wrap, or you can store it in jars, paper sacks, or ziplock bags. Shake or stir it every day. After this time, display in your choice of basket or bowl. Some store in an airtight container which they only open when they want to perfume the room. This method allows the potpourri to last much longer. Sunlight and dust will shorten its life. But, of course, then it allows you the pleasure to create more!

*A word about fixatives-- Most common is Orris root which is from the root of the Florentine Iris and has a very light fragrance. Other fixative choices are Oak Moss, Cellulose, or gum benzoin. Ask at your herbalist or craft store.

Drying A Summer's Potpourri

The drying process usually takes up to 2 weeks in general. There are two main methods for drying flowers and herbs, air drying and hanging. However, for both, complete the chosen process in a warm dark place that has good air circulation. Some choose to dry flowers via microwave--but I have never had success with that, so it's the 'tried and true' methods for ButtonWillow Cottage.

AIR DRYING: Using a window screen works quite well. It allows air circulation around the plant material. Place the flowers and or herbs on a single layer. Do not pack them tightly together or on top of each other or they will rot and brown.

HANGING: Fasten together several small bunches, tie the stems off with elastics or string. Hang them upside down to dry out. But again, be aware that sometimes, where the flowers touch each other, they have a tendency to brown.

Harvesting For A Summer's Potpourri

Be sure to handle your herbs and flowers carefully to avoid bruising them. Once they have been bruised you will have lost much of the value in them for their essential oils.

The best (and loveliest) time to collect leaves, roots, flowers and seeds is in the early morning after the mist and dew has evaporated.

Choose plants that are clean, free of any pests or diseases. Choose flowers that are newly opened. Some flower buds are also quite pretty in the final mix.

*Hint: Always collect 4 times the amount you will need for the final potpourri mix as flowers, leaves etc. will shrink when dried.

A Summer's Potpourri

"No bought potpourri is so pleasant as that made from ones own garden, for the petals of the flowers one has gathered at home hold the sunshine and memories of summer."
~Eleanor Sinclair-Rhode

Summer Vacation

Hope your summer break is equally as lovely!
Enjoy, and see you soon!

Planning...

"It amazes me that most people spend more time planning next summer's vacation than they do planning the rest of their lives."
~Patricia Fripp

...and the livin' is easy...

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.
~John Lubbock

Summer Weekend Handybook

It's always handy to have on hand, volumes that help with weekend planning. Here's wishes that your own weekend is filled with adventures, larks and beauty!
Summers are made of such things, aren't they?

JUNE

June 15
The birds still sing morning and evening, but there is not nearly such a full choir as there was a month ago. the cares and responsibilities of large families of hungry fledgelings make too many demands on the time and attention of the anxious parents.
It is very pretty to see the House Martins sitting in the roadway, collecting mud for their nests. Their short feathered legs look as if they had little white socks on.
I was quite surprised to come upon a bank of beautiful purple Fox-gloves today,--fully out. These are the first oI have seen in flower.
~The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady

The Morning Quilt

With the first gleam of morning rays, the garden is a prism of a thousand hues refracted in tiny does of crystal dew, a dazzling quilt of millefleur colors covering the sleeping flower beds.
~Duane Michals

Shhhhhh... Do You Hear It?

They're warming up...
I think the concert is about to start!

Blacksmith's Cottage--Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire County is a rural area in the east of England where the pace of life is generally much slower than much of the United Kingdom. It is known as the "capital of the wolds" (a term used in England to describe a range of hills consisting of open country overlying limestone or chalk) It has beautiful countryside including woods and seaside. It is also the boyhood home area of Alfred Tennyson.