Tips for Making a Beautiful Natural Holiday Potpourri

Handcrafted Holiday Potpourri and Passive Diffuser

This Holiday Potpourri Essential Oil Diffuser is a simple way of bringing nature and the seasonal scents into your home. Use these bowls of nature as center pieces for holiday gatherings or place on mantles, bookshelves, or end tables.

A few drops of a holiday essential oil blend on the potpourri will diffuse softly into the air and can be refreshed as often as desired.

In this Post:

[This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through one of these links I may earn a commission. This does not impact your price. For more information, please see our disclosure.]

Suggested Items for Your Holiday Potpourri

It starts with a foray into the woods on a dry day to harvest fallen pine boughs and pinecones. Take your time; enjoy the chill in the air and the aroma of the evergreens.

This is how a day of Nature foraging looks for us: The day is crisp, the sky a baby blue, and the grass, covered in frost, crunches under our feet. We laugh as Kiko races happily around us, panting plumes of hot breath into the cold air.

We’re forage the woods for perfect pinecones. We pinch the green tips off evergreen branches trimmed by Nature in a recent wind storm. We gather other bits of nature as inspiration hits. We harvest from fallen materials and take only what we need.

Then we head back home to the kitchen where a variety of whole spices along with dried cranberries and dried orange and apple rounds await us.

Potpourri “Ingredients”

• Pinecones, a variety of sizes
• Evergreen bough tips and other sturdy greenery (ivy, holly, etc.)
• Cinnamon sticks
• Clove buds
• Star Anise pods
• Dried Cranberries
• Dried Orange rounds
• Dried Red Delicious Apple rounds
• Dried flowers
• Candles or decorative accents

One of the most important steps in making a dried holiday potpourri is ensuring all fresh materials are completely dried—except the pine boughs, which will naturally dry over time. You don’t need a dehydrator to do this, but you can certainly use one if you have one!

🌺See my Recommended Suppliers below

Prepare Your Holiday Potpourri: Drying Fresh Ingredients

Preheat oven to 170°F (77°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

• Cranberries: Rinse and sort fresh cranberries, selecting only those that are firm. Discard any soft or damaged cranberries. Place on dish cloth and blot dry.
• Oranges: Slice into 1/4 inch (about 1/2 cm) rounds. Place on dish cloth and blot dry.
• Apples: I’ve found Red Delicious make the best apples for this potpourri. In small bowl combine equal parts water and lemon juice. Slice Apples into 1/4 inch (about 1/2 cm) rounds. Immediately dip each slice into lemon water and transfer to dish cloth. Blot dry.
• Pinecones: If the harvested pinecones are damp, they can also go in the warm oven for a short time to dry out.

Arrange prepared fruit on baking sheets, ensuring each berry or slice is not touching any other. Place carefully in preheated oven.

Check the status of the fruit occasionally, flipping slices and rolling berries to ensure even drying. Remove any fruit that is completely dry—apples will remain soft even when dry—and place on a separate baking sheet to cool. This whole process can take 8 hours or so.

Prepare your Holiday Potpourri: Choosing the Extras

While the fruit is drying, assemble your other components for your holiday potpourri.

• Spices: Beautifully aromatic with classic scents of winter holidays, Clove buds and Cinnamon sticks on their own provide a warm comforting aroma to your potpourri. The addition of Star Anise adds a rich aromatic dimension and interesting textural shape.

• Pine bough tips: I prefer to harvest pine tips from freshly downed branches. These can be broken off very easily with the fingers, so no special cutting tools are required. For potpourri I like to use tips that are rich green, flexible, and no longer than 6 inches (15 cm).

• Bowls of various sizes and materials allow you to create a variety of looks for different areas of your home—glass, ceramic, wood, wicker.

• Holiday decor such as an ornament, snow globe, or a holiday-themed passive diffuser, like the Winter Fir featured in the image here, add an additional seasonal touch to the display.

• Candles make a lovely addition to bowls of holiday potpourri and are one of my favorite ways to provide ambiance throughout the winter. When lit, handcrafted beeswax candles will lend a soft honey aroma that enhances any essential oil blend you choose to add to your dried potpourri.

Assemble Your Holiday Potpourri Bowls

Be creative with your arrangements. This potpourri is beautiful on its own or surrounding a candle or decorative holiday accent.

💚PRO TIP: If using a candle or accent, place it on an inverted small bowl inside the larger bowl, then arrange your holiday potpourri around it.

Medium sized and large pinecones can be arranged around a candle or by themselves.

The addition of pine boughs and/or dried flowers makes the bowl more festive. I like the contrast of white baby’s breath (Gypsophilia spp), but the yellow pop of dried daises or billy balls (Craspedia spp) or the deep red of dried roses would be lovely, too.

More on Using Candles…

While your fruits are drying, you can handcraft your own pure beeswax candle with this candle making kit from Aromatics International. Or make a bunch of candles following the steps in the Handcrafted Beeswax Candles post (all the supplies are on Amazon).

If you’re not up for handcrafting your own candle, Alternative Imagination makes some lovely candles made with beeswax ethically sourced from suppliers in the US. They offer a variety of candle types and shapes. For this purpose, I like to use their loose votives in glass votive holders.

🔶️Candle Safety: When used as a centerpiece in a holiday potpourri bowl, candles should be enclosed in a jar or appropriate sized holder. Never leave a lit candle unattended.

Using Potpourri for Passive Diffusion

Unlike the artificially scented pinecones sold in grocery stores during the winter holidays, your potpourri will diffuse softly any essential oil blend you sprinkle on it. The apples and pinecones, especially, absorb the essential oils, slowing diffusing them into the air.

I add 3-5 drops of a seasonal scent essential oil blend to the potpourri each morning and enjoy the gentle aroma throughout the day. If I want a stronger aroma I add another drop or two and then I refresh as needed.

During Fall, I like to use a spice-rich essential oil blend. My favorite is my Autumn Spice blend, which provides a warm welcoming aroma throughout the season. Or if you want a boost of positive cleansing energy, use my Momster (more than just a) Halloween blend.

In December I switch to a conifer-rich essential oil blend. The conifer essential oils provide a breath-opening yet grounding energy. While I use them all year round, I especially enjoy including conifer essential oils, like the Cedarwoods, Siberian Fir, and Black Spruce, in seasonal scent blends.

My conifer-rich Wintry Days and O Xmas Tree Seasonal Scents are my go-to blends at this time of year. Make these or customize your own seasonal blend with the essential oils from my favorite suppliers of these beautiful oils (below).

💚PRO TIP: An alcohol-based seasonal spice room spray is also a wonderful way to provide scent to your natural potpourri. Give this Chai Spice Room Spray a try!

I hope you have fun crafting your natural potpourri. Please let us know in the comments below what your favorite ingredients are!

Mom’s Recommended Suppliers

Favorite Spice Suppliers

Spice Train (on Amazon) and The Spice Way (also on Amazon) are my favorite easy-access sources for non-GMO whole Clove Buds, Star Anise, and Cinnamon Sticks, and more. These are the two companies I feature in my Warming Winter Spices shopping list on Amazon.

In addition to Spice Train and The Spice Way, I like the fresh, spicy, aromatic organic Cinnamon Sticks from Mountain Rose Herbs or Starwest Botanicals (also on Amazon)—they also taste great as a garnish to swirl in tea and hot cider! Mmmmmm.

Mountain Rose Herbs is also an excellent source for organic whole Clove Buds and Star Anise.

Favorite Conifer Essential Oils

• Black Spruce essential oil (Picea mariana):
  • Plant Therapy, organic (Direct and Amazon)💛
  • Aromatics International, organic.

• Siberian Fir essential oil (Abies siberica):
  • Aromatics International, wildcrafted
  • Plant Therapy, sustainable “Fir Needle” (Direct and Amazon).

• Atlas Cedarwood essential oil (Cedrus atlantica):
  • Plant Therapy, organic (Direct and Amazon)💛
  • Aromatics International, organic.

• Himalayan Cedarwood essential oil (Cedrus deodara):
  • Aromatics International, wildcrafted
  • Plant Therapy, conventional (Direct and Amazon).

• Virginian Cedarwood essential oil (Juniperus virginiana):
  • Aromatics International, wildcrafted
  • Plant Therapy, sustainable (Direct and Amazon).

This information has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. It is for educational purposes only.
All recipes provided are for personal use and are not designed for re-sale or large-scale manufacturing.
Please consult your doctor, naturopath, herbal practitioner, or other qualified health professional for medical advice and before starting any herbal regimen, particularly if you are pregnant or nursing, have any existing medical conditions, or are taking any medications.