Scent your home – Holiday Style

A natural and personal way to scent your home this holiday season – simmering potpourri.

If your house is filled with a little bit of extra commotion at this time of year, then maybe a scented candle isn’t the best way to up the holiday ante in the air. The bones of holiday decor – sight, sound and smell – are best fulfilled in the safest manner possible. For me, while I love scented candles, my cats and dog are a little extra excited with all of the company and extra decor around, that I don’t always trust having a lit candle on the mantle.

I could deck the halls with boughs of holly and other woodsy trimmings, but I melt away at the scent of vanilla and cinnamon. So I scoured the internet for natural potpourri recipes for my crockpot that I can let simmer all day long. Here are just a few:

Orange Cinnamon Vanilla	Warm Apple Pie	Pine in a Pot
*peels from one orange	*peels from 2 apples	*handful of pine branches
*3 cinnamon sticks	*2 cinnamon sticks	*any of the following:allspice, nutmeg, cranberries,
*1 tsp pure vanilla extract	*1 tbsp whole cloves	cinnamom sticks, fruit
or 4 drops of essential oil

To make any of the above receipes, or to test out your own with your favourite scents, add the ingredients to water and simmer in a small crockpot. Be sure to check the water level frequently – don’t let it get too low! When you are done for the day, you can refrigerate the potpourri and use it again the next day.

Through all of my research, I could not find a recipe for a chocolate or baking scented potpourri. I guess the smell of fresh baking will have to come from the most natural source – dough in the oven from the chocolate chip cookies blogged about here!