Homemade Potpourri Scent Jars

These elegant scent jars, filled with homemade potpourri made with dried botanicals and essential oil, add a wonderful fragrance to your home. They’re also beautiful home decor pieces and a great alternative to candles and essential oil diffusers.

These homemade potpourri jars were inspired by some expensive ones from a high-end garden store.

I think mine are every bit as pretty as the originals — for a fraction of the price. And you get to customize them to your decor and scent preferences.

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No doubt about it, the Rosy Rings Floral Fragrance Jars from Terrain are gorgeous. And I’m sure they smell amazing. But at $58 for the small jars and $168 for the large jars, they were definitely outside my budget.

But I loved the idea and the look of them, and I knew I had the supplies to make a DIY version of the natural air fresheners using upcycled glass jars, essential oils, dried botanicals, gemstones and other foraged items. Given the popularity of my dried orange Christmas potpourri, I thought my readers would also enjoy making these fragrant works of art.

Supplies to Make for Homemade Potpourri Jars

I already had most of the supplies to make the DIY room scent jars in my craft room, gardening and home decor stash.

While I have included shopping links for these supplies, I really encourage you to use what you have when making these and maybe even forage for items to put in the jars. I used a $2 thrift store bottle and an empty, upcycled candle jar to make my potpourri jars.

I filled them with dried lavender from my garden, some rough gemstones we mined in the North Carolina mountains, leftover gardening supplies items from making dish gardens and dried flowers from Amazon that I originally bought to use for resin crafts. I could have also added some of the mini bird nests I used to make these spring gift tags or the seed pods I used for these fall tealight candle holders to the potpourri jars.

If you have dried herbs or flowers from your own garden, consider adding them to the homemade potpourri. Pinecones and seed pods, dried mosses, lichen, rocks, sticks, driftwood and shells can all be used to make potpouri.

How to Make Natural DIY Scent Jars

Once you’ve gathered all your supplies, you can begin adding fragrance to create the homemade potpourri.

The general rule of thumb is to use 8 drops of essential oils for every 1 cup of potpourri.

When I was making these scent jars, I applied the essential oils directly to the gemstones. Next, I used a chopstick to blend everything together before carefully adding the scented rocks carefully to jars.

You can also add the essential oils directly to your botanical materials, such as dried flowers, seed pods, sticks, shells and moss. Stir the homemade potpourri mixture gently, or toss everything together in a bag, to disperse the essential oils.

I don’t recommend you use this method with delicate dried florals or herbs as they could be damaged by stirring or tossing them in a bag.

I added those pieces individually to the potpourri jars and added drops of oil to scent them.

Filling the jars

Make sure your jars are clean and completely dry on the inside before filling them. You don’t want any condensation on the glass.

Using the Terrain fragrance jars as my inspiration, I began by placing either scented gemstones or dried moss in the bottom of each jar.

Then I layered in dried floral buds, other rocks and natural accents. I added the larger floral stems, leaves and herbs last.

If you’re using a wide mouth jar or vase, you’ll have a much easier time placing delicate dried herbs and flowers.

You can use tweezers or even wooden chopsticks to place the stems in the jars. to create a pleasing finished look.

What essential oils should I use to make homemade potpourri?

Whenever possible, I like to match the scent to the botanical material I’m using. So, if you’re using dried lavender in your scent jar, add some lavender essential oil. If you’re using dried roses, add rose essential oil. If you’re using dried geranium flowers, add some geranium essential oil.

But you should also aim to create a scent that will be pleasing to you.

Before using and diffusing oils, check to make sure they are safe to be used around pets and children. Some scents are not.

Some of my favorite essential oils to use in home fragrances include:

• sweet orange
• ylang ylang
• Vanilla Absolute
• Happy Joy Blend
• Tranquility Blend
• Citrus Burst Blend
• Clean & Fresh Blend

My friend Katie from Purely Katie has some great ideas for seasonal essential oil blends.

Simply Earth Essential Oil Recipe Box

How long will these scent jars last?

Over time, the scent from your homemade potpourri scent jars may fade.

But you can easily refresh them by adding more fragrance. Just add essential oils or fragrance a drop at a time.

More Botanical Projects

If you enjoyed these DIY scent jars, check out these other botanical projects.

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• Christmas Potpourri with Dried Oranges
• Tealight Candle Holders
• Printable Vintage Seed Catalog Party Favor Bags
• Printable Floral Bulb Bags
• Cassia & Orange Scented Candles
• Inexpensive Botanical Artwork
• Vintage Botanical Easter Eggs
• Signs of Spring Homemade Gift Tags

Pin This! Elegant homemade Potpourri Jars