With only 34 days to Christmas, it’s now time to decorate out homes for the festive season.
Did you get your pre-Christmas clean up completed?
My home has been scrubbed, scoured and cleaned to perfection and now awaits its Christmas make over. I’m in the process of packing away our usual ornaments and photo frames to make room for all my festive goodies.
Throughout the year I teach my art students that creativity involves using all of our 5 senses and so it is for Christmas. Sight, sound and taste are well taken care of during the festive season but what about smell. Nothing evokes memories like a scent. Whether it’s the scent of Christmas pine, fresh-baked gingerbread or kitchen spices, the scents of Christmas are truly special.
There are many fun ways to give your home a festive fragrance. Scented candles come in some great Christmas fragrances.
Pot pourri in a pretty dish is an easy way to add a seasonal feel to a room, or why not do it yourself with a homemade orange and clove pomander ball?
Today I am going to share with you several things I use to scent my Christmas home and put everyone in a holiday mood.
The first one is simmering pot pourri. The fragrance from this mix will fill your house with intoxicating and invigorating Christmas smells.
Christmas Simmering potpourri
It’s simple and great smelling. I like to mix the dry ingredients up in little zip lock bags to have them ready to add to water during the holiday season.
Here’s my recipe:
Mix all ingredients in medium saucepan. Simmer on low heat and add more water as needed.
The Christmas Simmering Pot Pourri also makes a lovely gift to give to friends and can be packaged up nicely in a cello bag and adorned with a pretty tag.
Giveaway
For this week’s Friday Giveaway I’ll be gifting a bag of Christmas Simmering Pot Pourri to several followers of my blog.
For added Christmas scent I like to use cinnamon ornaments around my home. Combined with fresh pine sprigs and pine cones, the cinnamon ornies give a really homely look to your decorating.
The recipe that I use is
Mix in bowl and stir until well blended. Work mixture in hands for three minutes to form a ball. If it is too dry, add applesauce, if too wet, add more cinnamon. Knead ball on cinnamon-sprinkled surface until it holds together well. I roll this out and use cookie cutters for the shapes. I also use a skewer to cut a hanging hole. These can be air dried for 24 to 48 hours (turning several times) or they can be baked in a slow oven for 5 -6 hours with the oven door slightly ajar to allow circulation of air.
Tip: I’ve had good results drying my ornies in the griller section of my oven while I have goods baking in the oven. Enough heat radiates from the oven to the griller section to dry them out over time and with the amount of baking I do at this time of year, they are dry in a day or two.
Photo source unknown.
Finally, to boost my scented decorating I like to incorporate dried apples and oranges in my Christmas vignettes. They look great teamed with pine sprigs, cinnamon sticks and cinnamon ornaments.
How to prepare your dried apple and oranges:
Apple Slices: Slice 1/4 inch thick and soak for 30 minutes in a brine made from the juice of 2 lemons, 2 tablespoons of salt and 1 cup of water. Spread on silicone paper on a cookie sheet and bake 2-3 hours in a 200-250 degree oven.
Orange Slices: Cut oranges into thin slices, lay on paper towels and microwave on medium for 3 minutes. Flip and repeat several times, then follow directions for baking apple slices in oven.
Tip: I dry apples and oranges with the cinnamon ornaments at the same time.
It’s beginning to smell alot like Christmas!
Hugs ~ Kerryanne