Green Monday: DIY Holiday Scented Home
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There is nothing like the holidays. The sights, sounds, tastes and smells of the season always makes me feel so happy and cozy. Today, we have a simple, Green Monday approved technique for adding a bit of holiday scent and magic to your home. Best of all, this happy little holiday DIY only requires few household basics that you most likely already have in the kitchen.
DIY: Holiday Scented Home
1) Take an old sauce pot and fill with water. (Do not use a new pan, it may stain.)
2) Add the following:
• 4 cinnamon sticks
• A handful of whole cloves
• Rind of one lemon
• Rind of one orange
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon of whole allspice – optional
3) Place the pan on low heat and let it simmer.
Your house will smell heavenly in no time. Make sure to keep an eye on the pot and the water level and add more as needed. If you have a gas stove, try this with a small simmer pot or even crock pot.
Enjoy and Happy Holidays!
What a lovely, simple way of making your home smell scrumptious! Thank you for sharing this, @hao9703. I’m going to dig out an old saucepan and give it a try!
I love this! I’ll be setting this up for Christmas morning for sure. I used to have a large vase I filled with whole coffee beans and candles, that was great for the holidays as well. This is nice because it will help with how dry my house has been this winter too.
My mom does this in a crockpot and it’s AMAZING. It works great on the stove, it just makes my husband nervous to keep something going and walk away. (He’s a sissy.) I even made my husband order take-out the last time I did it; I didn’t want to lose that wonderful Christmas smell by cooking! :-)
This is great Holly! My house always needs a pick me up like this. And this would bother those with allergies much less than some candles that I own.
Oh, I can practically smell this just looking at the picture! YUM. Thanks for sharing @hao9703
This is so awesome Holly @hao9703 ! Thanks for sharing this ‘secret’ to a yummy holiday home. It’s so simple, but I never would have though of it.
And I love that you could add in a few of your own seasonal faves – maybe some cranberries, or ginger? Mmmmm
This sounds great and i bet it smells wonderful!
I bet you could even put in some apple cider and rum and make a tasty holiday drink! *wink wink nudge nudge*
Thank you for sharing this, @hao9703! I have done this before, but that was years ago! It was so much fun.. not to mention, that it smells wonderful forever!
As a child we would often make a sort of potpourri like this. Whenever we made apple pie we would save the peels and put it in a mix like this (using the orange peels and spices) and the house would always smell amazing, It’s a great alternative to the chemical fake sprays that people tend to resort to. Thanks for sharing!
This is great – I’m definitely filing it in the do-every-year Christmas traditions. Thank you, Holly!
I also love this. There is just something wonderful about the smell of cloves and cinnamon! I usually just put some mulled cider on the stove and let it simmer till my house smells good. My kids love to drink it and I love to smell it. Makes my house smell yummy!
This is so great! I’m definitely doing this :)
Thank you @hao9703 …I would love to try this sometime soon:)
@cori – I thought the same thing! I do apple cider, spiced rum, a cinnamon stick, a few orange slices, and a small apple w/ cloves stuck into it in the crock pot and booze it up. Everything smells lovely and I’m schnookered–it’s how holidays SHOULD be spent :)