orange clove pomander

 

orange clove pomander, originally uploaded by –Barbara–.

I definitely love this time of year. One of my favorite memories growing up is sitting in my room making an orange pomander out of a kit from American Girl. The kit was all about Kirsten‘s culture in sweden and how they celebrated holidays in a tiny one-room cabin once they immigrated to america. I love these orange-clove pomanders because they are so simple, but have such great impact on the senses. Over time, it will dry and shrink, but will become more fragrant. This is a great project for any age, as long as they are past the putting-things-in-their-mouth-to-exlpore stage. Maggie had difficulty poking the cloves in, but enjoyed eating the extra orange, and handing me the cloves.

All you need for this:
an orange
whole cloves (from craft or grocery stores)
ribbon

Tie ribbon around orange as if you were tying a bow around present, leave enough ribbon to hang if you want yours to hang. Then just poke the cloves in around the orange.  And your done!

 

I only outlined the ribbon because I am saving cloves for cookie-making tomorrow. The more cloves, the merrier in my opinion, but it would also be fun to spell out a message or make a pattern, etc.

****

In other news, I am really looking forward to Friday, when my dad arrives in London!  He will be spending the holidays (and his birthday!) with us, and his brothers’ families who live just outside London.  Here’s a great photo of my brother and I with him many winters ago; the linocut is by Mark Herald.