Green Tip Tuesday – The Scented Room

I’ll admit it, I love, love, love when my homestead smells good with scented candles, scented wax tarts, essential oils, or even mulling spices on my stovetop. I especially love wax tarts that are handmade with essential oils. I found some this summer at a Primitive store in New England that I absolutely adore. Truly though, I loved everything in this store of primitive art, but more on that later. The tarts I purchased are “fall” scents. Those tend to be the scents I am drawn to. I love the smell of clove, cinnamon, apple, pine, spiced and sweet orange, etc. I will definitely be calling this store to order more of these scented tarts and foresee this being a future giveaway!

I would say it usually is the fall and winter seasons when I tend to want to scent my home. Since it’s not quite fall yet, (though I hate to tell all those people who have experienced a sweltering summer, that here, in Northern California we’ve had I believe 2 days over 90 – yep, just 2 – man, I love living here), but since it is still technically summer, I’m not quite ready to burn my favorite candles or melt my scented wax yet.

In the warmer months, I use a different way to freshen my house indoors. I use herbs. My yard, which struggles to grow most everything with the soil I have, lack of hours of direct sunlight and especially this summer’s cooler temperatures can absolutely grow lots and lots of herbs – especially rosemary. In fact, I may have enough rosemary in my small yard to supply a small nation. It’s super easy to grow and seems pest resistant except for the occasional spiders who spin their webs in it. I love it and brush up against it any chance I get. Once in a while I get to trimming this rosemary so it simply won’t take over every other plant in the yard. Then, I fill a variety of vases with it and place them around the house. It makes our small cabin smell delicious.

I place vases in the kitchen (especially handy if you want to snip a little for some cooking),

the bathrooms (sometimes I toss some into the tub too),

on the mantle,

by the stereo,

on the dressers

and on the night stand in the guest room.

I even throw a little into my countertop compost bin just for fun.

I read that in the Middle Ages, rosemary was associated with wedding ceremonies. It was a display of love and loyalty if the bride wore a crown of rosemary and the guests were given sprigs to hold to show they were loved in friendship too. It was also believed that by placing a sprig of rosemary under your pillow before sleep you could prevent nightmares, and if placed outside the home it would repel witches. Makes my yard quite a nice “witch free” Halloween zone I’d say. OH Halloween…my favorite holiday…but I digress….

Rosemary is also said to boost the memory and enhance your senses. There are many homemade treatments out there for using rosemary from cooking recipes, to hair care treatments, etc.  As a little warning though, I’d like to say that I’m talking about the plant rosemary. The essential rosemary oil (not of the flavored cooking oil variety) should never be taken internally. It can be poisonous in strong doses so, please be aware of this distinction.

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Speaking of awesome, homemade recipes (yes, I do believe I was speaking of that or at least thinking about it), I must, must, must tell you about one of my absolute favorite blogs Crunch Betty. Crunchy Betty is all about helping you “take small steps towards a more healthy, money saving and chemical free life”. She loves to encourage us to put food on our faces…yes, you read that right. Here’s one of my favorite statements from her site:
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I couldn’t agree more…being healthy and finding new, simple ways to accomplish that is FUN!

You have to check out her site to read about all her fabulous recipes for making products from facial scrubs to bathroom cleaners and everything in-between. They are really incredible and so very easy! I recently made her facial scrub and let me tell you, I love it and now use it daily! All you need are almonds and oats. Here’s a quick group of photos to show you how very easy it was to make.

For details on quantities for making this scrub, click here to visit Crunchy Betty’s recipe. Also, please check out her blog for more details and info on making…well…almost anything (anything important that is). You can be sure in the future I’ll be referring back to her often.