DIY: Carpet Freshener

I'm super excited about this post - not just because this carpet freshener is so so easy to make, and that it actually works, but mostly because I just learned a very cool trick that I did not know and doubted it would work when I first saw it...I mean, how could I not know this already?

I checked out a few sites online to see if other people making carpet freshener had any different ingredients they add (in addition to how I was going to make mine) and stumbled on this little trick - did you know that the plastic top of a parmesan bottle fits on Mason jars? What? I'm kicking myself for all the tops I've thrown out thru the years, how many shaker lid Mason jars I could be using right now!

Ok, so for the freshener: simply fill a jar halfway with baking soda, add a few drops of essential oils (I used tangerine and lime), stir together. Add more baking soda to the top and a few more drops of essential oils, stir again. Screw on a shaker lid and you're done. Sprinkle the mixture on your carpet, let stand for a few minutes and then vacuum up. It comes up very easily, and there's an added bonus that the inside of my vacuum canister also smells good now!

If you don't have a parmesan shaker top laying around, you can make one (like I originally planned to use before the shaker top aha moment I just had) by cutting a circle to fit the top of your jar and punching a few holes in it before adding a canning ring to hold the paper in place.

not sure why I'm adding this picture - you can barely see the
baking soda sprinkled on my carpet...but trust me, it's there!

Car Air Freshener

There's lots going on while you're in the car and some of it is unpleasant. For example: traffic. lights. slowpoke grandpa in front of you. construction. stale air. Or maybe you're bummed you've lost that "new car smell"...

Any number of things to make your drive more difficult than it should be. Enter these easy to make air diffuser/fresheners to help change your mood, calm your mind, chill out, slow the road rage, or at the minimum at least make your car smell good!

You'll need:

embroidery thread

needle

wool felt balls

mini clothespins

essential oils

bells, buttons, beads, artificial flowers, plastic animals - lots of options!

Super easy - string a long piece of embroidery thread onto a needle; pull it thru the eye on a mini clothespin, then string a few wool felt balls leaving about an inch or so gap between the top ball and the clothespin.

After you have the number of balls you want strung, run the thread thru something that will hold them in place - I made a few different ones using a mini bell, a button, a plastic bead, and an artificial flower all with good success. I even drilled a hole thru a small plastic animal and strung that on in between the balls. So cute! Then run the thread back up thru the last felt ball and cut the thread close to the ball so you don't see a tail.

Once your air freshener is all strung, put a few drops of essential oils on each felt ball - you can do all one scent or mix them up; I did combinations of different citrus scents (grapefruit, tangerine, lime), grapefruit and lavender, tangerine and mint - whatever you like!

Clip to your car vent, or I have a bunch of stuff hanging from my rear view mirror so clipped mine to one of the existing hooks. When the scent starts to dissipate just add more essential oil drops to the balls.

3.4.18: Sheryl's chili
3.4.17: cream cheese feta dip
3.4.16: make a kids travel snack dispenser with Brooke and Sydney


Happy moment ~ so far there isn't a happy moment today, because my computer isn't working and driving me crazy and I can't see past that for the everyday little moment that I'm supposed to be looking for! Oh, and Sarge just threw up. And Dave didn't get around to doing his "man-day Monday segment" so I'm annoyed. I need to get in the car and smell my "mood altering" essential oil air freshener for sure. I did make cookies this morning tho, so I guess if there is a little happy moment it's the smell of peanut butter cookies

Epsom Salt Bath Cakes

I posted last month that I was going to make shower melts (click here for bath salt ornaments) for gifts but then I didn't follow up with how they turned out...because they didn't turn out! They do smell good, and the benefits are still there - they just didn't harden into the little cubes I was expecting. Never fear, they are still useful...just not very pretty gifts haha, and I can't really set one in the shower for the steam to melt it like I planned. So I put all the mushy cubes in a clear container and now just scoop out a bit and add to my bath water. I scented them with Doterra "breathe" respiratory blend which seems perfect this time of germy-cold year - click here to see how to make them and let me know if you have better luck getting them to stay in cubes! I will probably make these again and just not bother making them into cubes, I like just adding a scoop to the bath.

Having said all that, I did make a different bath salt thing that totally worked and I'm loving - these bath salt cakes. I found the recipe at epsomsaltcouncil.org and didn't change anything (shocker, I know.) - I have been using these cakes for a couple weeks now, I will definitely be making more of these in the future and want to experiment with "frosting" them...I'll let you know how that works out. For now, here's how to make these easy epsom salt cakes (I'll tell you how I did it, if you want additional instruction or info check out the epsom salt site):


Combine 4 cups of Epsom salt with 3 tablespoons of water. Mix in 1 teaspoon of olive oil; add 10-15 drops of essential oil (I combined lavender and grapefruit) depending on how strong you like your fragrance. Add food coloring until desired shade is achieved. Note: when you bake the salts, some of the fragrance and color will evaporate so you might want to go a little heavier with both. Mine turned more white around the edges after baking, but are still a light pretty blue and smell great.

Coat the inside of a 12-count muffin mold with a little olive oil. Divide mixture evenly among the muffin cups. Firmly pack the mixture - I tamped the mixture down as hard as I could using the bottom of a small glass -  and bake at 150' for one hour.

Note: their directions say to avoid hotter temperature because they could melt the salts, but my oven doesn't go lower than 170' and that worked just fine.

Let cool fo 20-30 minutes, turn pan upside down and gently ease the cakes out of the mold. Place the bath salts in a glass jar to store - I gave a few as gifts, stacked on top of each other and put in a clear treat bag, tied with a label and bow. Super cute.

Kids Craft...Brooke makes bath bombs

Brooke and I went to the mall and she bought a bath bomb (which was way too expensive!); we decided to try making them and found out they are really easy and the ingredients aren't costly (so why are they so expensive in the store?!). Watch how cute she is:

I searched online for instructions - this is the one we settled on. Click here for the original post. 

Homemade Bath Bombs, makes two large size or 3-4 "Easter Egg" size depending on your mold (you can easily double or triple)

4 oz. baking soda
2 oz. corn starch
2 oz. citric acid 
2 oz. Epsom salt
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons water
1 teaspoon essential oil 
1 1/4 teaspoon oil (I like coconut or olive oil here)
1-2 drops food coloring (optional)

In a bowl combine the dry ingredients (the first four listed above). Whisk to remove any clumps, corn starch tends to be clumpy. In a small glass jar stir together the wet ingredients (the last four ingredients listed). If you're using coconut oil, give it a quick melt in the microwave or stove top first so it will more easily combine with the other ingredients. Slowly pour the liquid mixture in with the dry mixture, whisking as you go. If you see the mixture fizz or foam, you may be adding the liquid too quickly. Once all the wet ingredients are combined with the dry, take a small amount in your hand and squeeze it together. It should stick together fairly well in one or two big chunks. If it's still too powdery to hold together, just add a tiny bit more water and mix until it does hold together. 

Fill molds and let them set for a few minutes to harden a little, then carefully remove from the molds and let air dry for a few hours or overnight. 

Note: Brooke and I used a giant ice cube ball mold but after making these I have been seeing instructions everywhere and all kinds of molds are used - I've seen muffin tins, ice cube trays for little ones...look around and see what you have that can be used for a mold if you don't want to purchase actual molds!

Bath Salts

I have a big jar of Epsom salts next to my bath tub, I've been buying them already scented but I decided this time to make make my own - I'm asking myself why haven't I been doing this all along? There are lots of "recipes" online but I didn't want to do anything fancy, just plain old scented salts - so I put about 6 cups of salt in a big glass bowl and added 30 drops each of eucalyptus and lavender essential oils, mixed it all up and then realized that the eucalyptus wayyyyy overpowers the lavender so I added more lavender until it smelled like both scents. Just like my cooking, I just added more until it was what I wanted :). So easy!

Tip: I keep a small plastic scoop in the jar and add a few scoops to the running bath water. I made the mistake of keeping a pretty wood scoop in there before but the salt destroyed it! Lesson learned - I recommend using plastic.

If I make this as a gift in the future I'll probably tint it a pretty color using dye that's ok for your skin - I have a bunch of colors for when we make soap.