I love when my house smells all festive around the holidays. Since I don’t buy a live Christmas tree, I always like a little pine or peppermint smell in the house, so I whipped up this natural air freshener that you can put whatever oil you’d like into your batch!

Directions:

1 cup of bottled or distilled water, heated to boiling
Stir in 4 envelopes of unflavored gelatin (KNOX) until dissolved. Tip: try to throw all envelopes in as simultaneously as possible and don’t stop stirring for a bit. The parts that touch first tend to solidify and make a little gel nub on the bottom that stays there indefinitely.

Remove from heat and stir in 1 cup of cold water

Add 1 to 2 Tablespoons salt or a good splash of vodka (to naturally inhibit mold growth). I tried both and I think I like the salt better. 

Add 15 to 30 drops of your favorite essential oil or any other concentrated fragrance. I used peppermint oil and a Demeter fragrance of Humidor.

At this point you can be creative and add food coloring if you like.

Pour the gel into clean small jars such as small jelly containers, baby food jars or any decorative container with or without a lid. Use your imagination. I used a beer bottle for one, because I liked the bottle top and didn’t want to throw it away.

Before it sets, you can also add little decoartive touches such as colored marbles, plastic candy machine trinkets, baby pinecones, seashells, maybe even a laminated, photocopied photo if giving as a gift!

You can also make layered ones by allowing one color to set and then adding another.

The gel will set at room temperature. You can place your containers in the refrigerator to set up the gel faster, but they will scent it! I didn’t want to run the risk of my carrots tasting like a humidor, so I set mine in the window and they all set within a couple hours.

Decorate your jars as you wish and enjoy. If giving as gifts, I would use containers with lids or wrap the open containers in plastic wrap to keep them from evaporating until ready for use.

There are no chemicals in these so they are much safer than the ones you buy at the store.

Cost per 2 cups of gel, less than $1.15.

Recipe found on the Queen of Clean