Pomanders

So, I know it's been several weeks since I promised the pomanders, but this have been busy, both life and work. First it was our anniversary (how could I possibly pass up the excuse to do some flowers--and cooking), then Thanksgiving, and so on. But, here are the pomanders, which were actually done the same day as the romantic country arrangements. It's a rather long one--the longest so far, I think?--but that makes up for the long time between posts, right?

Antique silver pomander ball ca. 1640.

Pomanders originate from medieval times, when higher class Europeans carried around posies or a pomander ball filled with oils and essences to ward of the every day bad smells at the time--everything that today goes into the sewer or garbage bags went into the streets and ditches at that time. Orange pomanders studded with cloves are still very popular around Christmas time. Today, floral pomanders or "kissing balls" are popular at weddings, and flower girls often carry them. A large variety of fake ones are also available online. They can also be made with fake flowers, and there are plenty of instructions online for that, as well.

Florists usually make fresh flower pomanders with floral foam, wire and/or ribbon, and some type of uniform flower that grows with one flower at the top of a stem, such as carnations, mums, daisies, or even roses. My A friend, D, wanted to do this with me, so we went shopping and I don't think I've ever bought so many flowers at once! That was pretty sweet. We used 4" foam spheres, wire, and ribbon to make ours, along with 4 colors of carnations and 2 dozen roses.

D's carnation pomander with baby's breath.

To attach the ribbon, we took stem wire, folded it in half, and stuck it all the way through the foam ball, twisting at the bottom. Each ball got two wires, and then we attached the ribbon to the top before putting the flowers in. Although the wire moved up through the foam significantly, we hung the yellow and purple pomander in the women's bathroom overnight and it stayed up all through the next day. However, next time I think I will try wrapping the ribbon around the sphere instead, as the flowers will cover it. 

My pomander--I love the purple and yellow together.

Once you have it ready to go, however, you simply cut the flowers off the stem, leaving about in inch, and insert them into the foam until it is covered. If you are using carnations, I think we used about 40 per sphere, but it was over a month ago now, and I don't remember exactly. With roses, however, I had large ones, and the 2 dozen I bought were not enough--I probably could have used 2 or three more. The other thing with the roses was that several of them turned brown around the edged very quickly. I'm not sure if it's due to quality, resting the ball on the table while I made it, or the fact that I manually opened all the roses so that they were very full.

Rose pomander centerpiece with pearl pins.

The rose pomander we made was much bigger, as the roses were rather large, and I found the ones in the bottom did not stay in well. Next time, I will try using the floral glue with the roses--the stuff I have is waterproof. I also picked up a box of corsage pins, and stuck one into the center of each rose. It was really pretty and turned out well. It also fit perfectly into the large glass bowl I have at home, so that's what it's in. I found out however, when I had tried to water the foam (it did get try on top), most of it went into the bottom of the bowl and rotted the flowers on the bottom. It would be fine for the day of an event, but not for several days. If you want a pomander-like center piece, there are half foam spheres for that, or you could get spheres and cut them in half.

Overall, the pomander experiment went quite well, and I really want to try the roses again some time. A lot of the women in the church really liked it, as well, and like me before seeing some of these on the internet when I first started researching florist things for Eiry (one of my characters at Suburban Senshi), many had no idea that you could do that with flowers. I've also discovered how to make pictures different sizes, move them around, etc., on the blog, so expect to see more fun with that!

Next time, I'll discuss designing colorful, spring-like flowers in pitchers!