potpourri

DIY

Don't Toss Those Flowers! How to Make Homemade Potpourri

When your sweet bouquet of flowers isn't as fresh as it used to be, instead of relinquishing to the trash, give those flowers new life as pretty potpourri.


When your sweet bouquet of flowers isn't as fresh as it used to be, instead of relinquishing to the trash, give those flowers new life as pretty potpourri. Making this DIY is easier than you think and can be personalized with any scents that you love. Toss in herbs or sliced citrus for filler, and the potpourri can be refreshed over and over again with a spritz of your favorite scent.

Read on for the easy directions.

Holiday

Casa Verde: Method Potpourri Ornament

Method never ceases to impress me with its well-designed, eco-friendly products.

Method never ceases to impress me with its well-designed, eco-friendly products. I've been waiting to see what it had in store for us this holiday season and I'm charmed now that I have. Method's new Potpourri Ornament ($10) is a tin ornament filled with compostable wooden beads. You can reuse the ornament for years to come after the beads have lost their scent. The ornament is available with a Spiced Pear or Winter Berry scent. If it smells as good as it looks, I'm sold. The scent of Christmas trees is so festive, though, that I'd probably hang this ornament elsewhere in the house. What do you think?

Halloween

How-To: Make Pumpkin Pie Incense

It's that time of year again.

It's that time of year again. Witches and ghosts will soon parade the streets and arrive at your door begging for candy. So, your house better be in good shape when they do. I'm not one for faux cobwebs clogging up my doorway, but I do love walking into a house that just smells like October. I was pretty excited when I came across a Martha Stewart project for a carved pumpkin incense burner that smells like pumpkin pie, so I decided I had to share. All you'll need is a small pumpkin, a knife, an apple corer, pumpkin pie spices, cloves, and a tealight.
To learn how to make this adorable thing, read more

Poo

Casa Verde: Poo-Pourri and Sheep Poo Paper

Spotted on Re-Nest, Creative Paper Wales is a Wales-based craft paper mill that makes paper and air fresheners from sheep poo!

Spotted on Re-Nest, Creative Paper Wales is a Wales-based craft paper mill that makes paper and air fresheners from sheep poo! No, you didn't misread that, from poo! Sheep Poo Paper is made by collecting the finest, freshest sheep poo in Snowdonia and "just about anything else [they] can think of that has good-length cellulose fibers in it," sterilizing it in a pressure cooker, washing it repeatedly, reducing it to a pulp, and then using traditional papermaking techniques to turn it into paper — without the use of any trees. Poo-Pourri ($2.93), made with this paper, is the world's first air freshener made with, um, poop, and uses an innovative Wave 'n' Waft folded fragrance technology that infuses the air with a scent (daffodil, fresh-cut grass) the more you wave it around. How about that? I'm truly impressed. What could be next? Recycled paper from trees is sooo last season, isn't it?