make my home smell wonderful

The diffuser pretty much provides what I envisioned when I started this goal. The scent is strong enough that I notice it when I come home, but I don’t have to worry about burning down the apartment. It does take a little while to build up the scent, but I don’t mind since I don’t plan to switch scents very frequently. Thus, I am considering this goal done.

I assembled it last night, and it’s supposed to take 36 hours to get up to speed.

I like the scent I chose, so we’ll see how it goes.

I went with DH to Pier 1 Imports yesterday and bought some scented tealights and two glass candle holders. I’m trying them out today. It’s kind of hard to smell them since we’ve been sitting in the apartment all day. The real test would be if we left for a little while and came back.

What little I can detect does smell pretty good, though.

I tried the cinnamon-cloves-allspice recipe in my mini-crockpot but it didn’t turn out too well. First of all, I accidentally left it plugged in with the lid off when I went to work today, so I made a mad dash home during lunchtime, terrified that my apartment would be full of smoke when I got home. Thankfully, since the crockpot isn’t actually that hot, there was still plenty of liquid left. On the downside, the crockpot isn’t hot enough to sufficiently distribute the scent throughout the apartment. For that I’d have to go back to the pot-on-the-stove plan. And I refuse to do that, since accidentally leaving the stove on would be a much bigger problem.

So, I think the next thing to try is some sort of potpourri bundle or wreath.

I tried the stovetop recipe suggested by KC_Cooker here and it did a wonderful job of scenting up the place, and the ingredients are incredibly cheap. But whenever I left the house I kept worrying about whether I’d turned off the stove (which of course I had). It was also a little annoying to have to keep adding water every once in awhile, but I guess that’s a necessary evil. The amount of scent that’s carried is undoubtedly proportional to the amount of water that boils off. Maybe I could use a larger pot so I can add more water, less frequently.

KC_Cooker says she uses her mini crockpot (with the lid off), so that’s what I’m going to try next time.

I found a recipe online for Spicy Harvest Simmering Potpourri which I decided to try in my cute little baby crockpot. The result: it smells pretty good, but only when I take off the cover to allow it to waft. I like that using the crockpot allows me to leave it on all day without worrying about adding more water all the time, but it also uses a lot of consumables. (Canned pumpkin doesn’t grow on trees, you know.)

I think KC_Cooker was on the right track in here comment here. I’m going to try that next. I’ll have to keep my eye on the the stove (which is a gas stove and doesn’t really have as low-heat a setting as I would like,) but the ingredients don’t add up to being as expensive as the recipe I already tried. Plus it sounds delightful.

to be able to come home to a home that smells nice. I don’t want to buy those commercially available air fresheners, either. I think I’m going to go with the “boil something on the stove” plan. That’ll give me some leeway to tweak the scent however I like.

Now, to figure out how to start.