Odessa Flower Spoon US
The Craftsman’s Review ✦
Stories of Prairie Craft & Kitchen
“My kiln is cracked and I won’t buy another one. These are the last flowers I’ll ever make.” Why a 69-year-old home-ec teacher is selling her last flower spoons at a special price
In a converted garage in Lindsborg, Kansas, Odessa Hultgren has spent her retirement making measuring spoons that look like a little bouquet, every flower shaped and painted by hand. Now she is stopping. Why is everyone suddenly asking about four little ceramic flowers? Because this is the last time they will ever be offered.
Odessa Hultgren (69) in her studio in Lindsborg, Kansas. After 34 years in the classroom and five years at the wheel, this fall’s firing is her last.
Lindsborg, October. The wheat fields along the road into town are cut to stubble, and the studio behind Odessa Hultgren’s house, a converted two-car garage, smells of wet clay and coffee. The shelves are full of little sky-blue pots, each one holding four ceramic flowers in pink, red, yellow and peach.
Odessa pulls the yellow flower out of a pot and turns it over. On the back of the green stem, pressed into the clay, it says ½ tsp. From the shelf you would never guess. From the shelf, it looks like a bouquet.
“Everybody smiles the first time. Then somebody who bakes picks one up, reads the handle, and says, ‘Oh. These are real.’”
“I’m 69,” she says. “My wrists ache after an afternoon at the wheel, and in September the lid of my kiln cracked straight across. I’m not buying another one at my age.” She shrugs. “And the world has moved on. Everything in the stores is plastic and made by the million.”
34 years teaching kids to bake, and one little set for her granddaughter
For 34 years, from 1987 until she retired in 2021, Odessa taught home economics at the high school in Lindsborg. In her classroom, every spoon got filled, then leveled with the back of a knife. “Baking isn’t cooking,” she told every class. “Soup forgives you. Cookies don’t.”
When she retired, she took a pottery class in town, then set up a used wheel and a small kiln in the garage. The idea for the flowers came from her granddaughter Linnea, who was five at the time and wanted to help with everything. “To a little girl, metal spoons all look the same,” Odessa says. “I wanted her to have something of her own on the counter. Something she’d want to reach for.”
So she made four little flowers, each one a different size and a different color, and a small blue pot for them to stand in. It took her eleven tries before the whole bouquet stood up straight.
Every flower is painted by hand. After five years, Odessa could do it with her eyes closed, but she still checks every one twice.
Linnea named them that first afternoon. The big pink one was “the grown-up flower”, the tiny peach one was “the baby”. “Red is a teaspoon, yellow is half,” she will tell anyone who asks.
Odessa took two sets to her Saturday market table on Main Street, mostly as a joke. A woman bought both before nine. The next week there was a line. Soon she was mailing boxes to Wichita and Kansas City.
What makes Odessa’s flower spoons so special
Fill it, level it with the back of a knife, done. The way Odessa taught it for 34 years.
It isn’t only the colors. Each set is a little piece of pottery that just happens to be useful, not something off a conveyor belt.
Every spoon is its own flower, and every flower is its own size. The biggest is the tablespoon, the smallest is the quarter teaspoon. The size is pressed into the stem before the firing, so it can’t rub off. When you’re done, the flowers go back into their pot, and the pot stays on the counter like a small bouquet.
The whole set is small. The pot is just 2.6 inches tall, smaller than a coffee mug, so it fits next to the stove or on the windowsill where nothing else would. Odessa is honest about the rest: “They’re ceramic. Drop one on a tile floor and it breaks, same as a mug. Wash them by hand.”
The result is a set of measuring spoons nobody hides in a drawer. It turns a corner of the kitchen into something pretty, and it makes the youngest bakers in the house want to help.
“Some of them came back to the market just to say thank you”
Odessa keeps a shoebox of notes people have left for her at the market. She pulls out a card from August and reads it out loud.
“Dear Mrs. Hultgren, I am 74 and I bake with my grandson every Sunday. For years he just watched. I bought your flowers in June because they were pretty, and the first Sunday he asked if he could do ‘the yellow one’. Now he measures everything and I just read the recipe. I thought you should know.”
— A customer from Salina
There is a simple reason people write: care instead of speed. Odessa works one set at a time. Every flower is shaped, dried, fired, painted and fired again. From wet clay to finished set takes her about a week.
The last sets from the fall firing. Every pot is checked with all four flowers standing before it is wrapped and boxed.
The end of the season, and one last chance
When Odessa opened the kiln after the September firing, the lid had a crack straight across it. Around 300 sets are left on the shelves. The last flowers that will ever come out of that garage.
To make sure they go to good homes, she has made a decision: one flat special price for every set that’s left, $59 instead of the $89 they sold for at the market. The price holds until November 30. After that, whatever is left is sold while it lasts. “I’m not doing this to get rich,” she says. “I want them in kitchens before Christmas, with people who bake. Half the people at the market bought them as gifts anyway.”
Her daughter Annelise, Linnea’s mother, is the one who put them online. “At my age I have no idea how any of that internet business works,” Odessa says, laughing. “Annelise answers the emails. I wrap the boxes.”
It was Linnea who named the colors, too: Prairie Rose for the tablespoon, Poppy Red for the teaspoon, Buttercup Yellow for the half and Peach Blossom for the quarter. The names stuck. For many families, the little pot has become a ritual: flowers out, flour in, and someone small on a stool to help.
What sets Odessa’s flower spoons apart:
Made in Odessa’s studio: Every set is shaped, painted and fired one at a time in Lindsborg. No factory, no conveyor belt.
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Real ceramic, not plastic: Real weight in your hand and a glaze fired on in the kiln, so the colors stay.
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The size is pressed in: 1 Tbs, 1 tsp, ½ tsp and ¼ tsp are pressed into each stem before the firing, so the numbers can’t rub off.
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One flower, one size: The biggest flower is the tablespoon, the smallest is the quarter teaspoon. Even a five-year-old knows which one to grab.
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Small enough for any counter: The pot is just 2.6 inches tall, smaller than a coffee mug, and all four flowers live in it together.
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Limited: Only around 300 sets left from Odessa’s last firing. When they’re gone, there will be no more.
Prairie Rose, Poppy Red, Buttercup Yellow and Peach Blossom. Every glaze runs a little differently in the kiln, so no two sets are exactly alike.
What real customers say about Odessa’s flower spoons
★★★★★
“I bought it because it was pretty and figured it would end up on a shelf. It has been on my counter since the day it came, and yes, I actually bake with it.”
Joanne R., 58 · Hutchinson, KS
★★★★★
“My daughter is five and wants to help with everything. She learned the colors in one afternoon: pink is the big one, peach is the baby. Now she asks to bake just so she can use ‘the flowers’.”
Kayla H., 34 · Overland Park, KS
★★★★★
“You can feel it’s real pottery the moment you pick it up. Nice weight, smooth glaze, and the little butterfly on the pot is painted so carefully. Nothing like the plastic sets in the stores.”
Bernice W., 66 · Joplin, MO
★★★★★
“My grandson and I bake every Sunday. He calls it ‘Grandma’s flower pot’ and won’t let anyone else put the spoons back. It has become our little ritual.”
Wilda D., 72 · Emporia, KS
“The nicest present I’ve given my mom in years”
Her customer Carol M. (51) from Hays agrees: “I gave my mom a set for her birthday. She has baked for our family for fifty years. She held the little pot for a long time and said nobody had ever given her something for her kitchen that was made just to be beautiful. It hasn’t left her counter since, and she calls Odessa ‘the flower lady’.”
A flower spoon set as a present: for many customers, the gift that got the biggest reaction all year.
Where can you get Odessa’s flower spoons?
Odessa’s flower spoons are only available through her own little shop online, which her daughter Annelise runs for her. Only there will you get the original sets from her last firing. Cheap look-alikes have started to appear on Amazon and other big sites. At first glance they may look similar, but they are painted plastic, and they have nothing to do with Odessa’s work.
Only this fall, then it’s over
Odessa wants every set to have found a good home by Christmas. “After that, it really is the end,” she says. She looks at the shelves and smiles. “Five years of flowers. It’s been a lovely time.”
If you’d like one of the original sets from Odessa’s last firing, don’t wait too long. With the special price and this much interest, the remaining sets are not expected to last.
The verdict
Odessa’s flower spoons are the measuring spoons people fall in love with. They are made by hand in a garage in Kansas and feel like a small, cheerful bouquet on your counter, with four real measuring spoons inside that even the smallest baker can tell apart.
A piece with real heart: lovingly made, well thought through, and a small moment of joy every time somebody reaches for the yellow one. Thank you, Odessa!
Try your set risk-free! Every set comes with Odessa’s 90-day money-back guarantee. Put it next to your stove and bake with it. If it doesn’t earn its spot on your counter, simply send it back and get your money back.
Limited quantity · Ships within 1–2 business days
Readers love Odessa’s flowers
Photos sent in by readers.
★★★★★
“It makes me a little sad that makers like Odessa are stopping. I ordered two right away, one for me and one for my sister in Ohio. Now we both have our flowers on the counter.”
Linda K., 61 · Wichita, KS
★★★★★
“It is smaller than I pictured, so read the size: the pot fits in your hand. But that’s the charm. It fits next to my stove where nothing else would, and the spoons are regular measuring sizes.”
Marcine S., 47 · Lincoln, NE
★★★★★
“I bought one of the cheap copies online first: painted plastic, and it tipped over. Odessa’s is real pottery and sits solid. My wife says it’s the prettiest thing in her kitchen.”
Delbert T., 69 · McPherson, KS
★★★★★
“Every guest who comes into my kitchen asks about it. My grandkids argue over who gets to measure the vanilla with ‘the baby’.”
Darlene P., 68 · Great Bend, KS
★★★★★
“Bought one for my aunt’s 80th. She taught me to bake when I was little. She keeps it on the windowsill above the sink and says it’s the only bouquet that never wilts.”
Rachel G., 39 · Topeka, KS
90-day money-back guarantee · Ships in 1–2 days
DISCLOSURE: The owner of this site has a material connection to the products shown on this page. Please review the full return policy before ordering. Testimonials reflect individual experiences and results may vary. Ceramic is breakable; hand washing is recommended. Images are for illustration; because each piece is finished and painted by hand, the final product may vary slightly.
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