Spice bouquets by Maria Dänzer
Spice decorations – wonderfully fragrant
Today I want to show you what you can do with spices – except cooking, of course. You can make wonderfully fragrant decorations. Maybe you know potpourries or ornate oranges which are easy to make.
Maria Dänzer – The spice binder
I would like to introduce you to someone special. Maria Dänzer who enriches various markets in Ticino, Switzerland, with her beautiful spice bouquets. She is a professional gardener and flower binder and started to make spice bouquets in the 80’s. As a native of Salzburg, she knows these little bouquets well, as they were first made there. They are often called Biedermeier bouquets as well. The purpose of these bouquets is to smell good and they are often gifted at baptisms, weddings or other festivities. There are many different shapes and sizes. Some are designed as table decorations for the saloon table, others decorate a candle as wreaths.
How are they made?
For the production Maria uses strongly fragrant spices like cloves, cinnamon and star anise. The binding is a true art and Maria is an expert in it. She wraps every single clove with a 0.3 mm thick wire, cinnamon and star anise with a little thicker one. It means, each star anise, each piece of cinnamon and each clove is taken individually. When she has all the spices ready she goes on to binding them into a wreath. With a colored ribbon she winds the spices together making a bouquet or wreath. Maria often binds a gold thread into the bouquet, and in some cases she even incorporates handmade roses made from satin ribbons.
It takes about 3 hours and 300-400 cloves for a nine centimeters spice cloves wreath!!
Each piece is therefore a unique piece and made by hand with dedication.
If you want to talk to Maria personally or see her little bouquets, you will find her – as every year – at the Christmas market in Lugano. This year from 1.12. until 24.12.2018 in via Nassa, Lugano / Switzerland. In addition, she is still regularly on various weekly markets: on Tuesdays in Ascona (during the summer) and on Thursdays in Locarno.
It’s worth a visit!!
Do you like cinnamon? Next time you can discover it!