Veggies that grow in shade

Skin Clarifying Exfoliant

DIY Gel Air Fresheners

 

You are going to love these. They are so neat, I couldn't wait to try them! They are homemade gel air fresheners, and what's great about them is that you get to choose your own scent and they are completely natural.

 

 

 

To make your own gel air fresheners you will need:

 

2 pkg. unflavoured gelatine

2 c. water

20-30 drops essential oil

Food colouring

1 tbsp. salt

Small heat-proof container

Small jelly or jam jars work great for these air fresheners. You can buy a package of four Ball decorative jelly jars for about $5 at Wal-Mart.

 

Next you need to choose your scent. You can buy inexpensive fragrance oils in the candle section at Wal-Mart. They have many scents to choose from. You can also use essential oils (sweet orange oil smells great), but they are more expensive. You can order these online or find them at some craft stores or in your local health food store. You can also find great smelling fragrance oils at high end home interior stores.

 

Food colouring is optional. If you don't add colour your gel air fresheners will be clear, so if you want them coloured, add a few drops of food colouring of your choice.

 

Heat one cup of water in a small sauce pan to a boil, and sprinkle both packages of gelatine on top of the water. Use a whisk to mix it together until the gelatine is completely dissolved.

 

Add the food colouring, salt, and essential oil, and stir until well blended. Add remaining cup of water and stir again. Pour the mixture into the glass jar and let set until the gelatine thickens and sets. One recipe makes one gel air freshener, depending on the size of your jar.

 

Note: The salt is added as a natural preservative. These air fresheners will last for about a month with the salt added. Then you can rinse them out and make new ones. If you don't add the salt the mixture will mould much faster.

Gel Air Freshners

 

 

 

These gel air fresheners are perfect. This project takes a total of five minutes to make, is highly economical, and each jar should last you about a month. This would also make great gifts!

Into make these little beauties, you first need a heat-proof jars, food colouring colours of your choice, and essential oil. You can find inexpensive essential oils of various scents at craft stores and some grocery stores. I chose a raspberry scented oil...it smells delightful!

Into each jar, drop a few drops (I repeat...a few...it doesn't take more than 2 or 3) of food colouring.

Then, put in about 30 drops of essential oil, give or take. The more essential oil you put in, the stronger the smell.

Now for the fun part. Gather up 4 envelopes of unflavoured gelatine, a tablespoon of salt, and 2 cups of cold water.

Why salt? Salt (or vodka) apparently help to keep the gel from moulding. Interesting fact, isn't it?!?

Get one cup of water boiling on the stove. When it begins to boil, whisk in the gelatine, stirring until it's all dissolved.

Then, pour in the other cup of cold water and the salt, stirring until the salt is dissolved.

Quickly pour the hot gelatine mixture in each of your jars, and then use a disposable stick or spoon to stir it into the oil and food colouring.

Let these gel overnight, and then voila! Air freshener!

 

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How to Make Your Own Rose Water

Rose water is used in cosmetics for its lovely scent, but also because it has light astringent properties. As the gentlest of all astringents, rose water is often used as toner for fair and dry skin.

You must be careful when purchasing rose water to buy only the 100 percent pure form. Often what is available in pharmacies and even some natural food stores is synthetic rose oil and water with preservatives added. Pure rose water is the distilled water of roses. It is usually made by stream distillation, and it smells heavenly and tastes delicious.

Availability: Besides health food stores and herb stores, you can often find rose water in delicatessens; it is used as a flavoring in fancy Greek pastries, puddings, and cakes.

This recipe is the more traditional way to prepare rose water. Though it’s a little more involved, its fun to do and the results are outstanding. You can make a quart of excellent-quality rose water in about 40 minutes. However, if you simmer the water too long, you will continue to produce distilled water but the rose essence will become diluted. Your rose water will smell more like plain distilled water, rather than the heavenly scent of roses.


Be sure you have a brick and heat-safe stainless steel or glass quart bowl ready before you begin.

Ingredients:
2-3 quarts fresh roses or rose petals
Water
Ice cubes or crushed ice

1. In the center of a large pot (the speckled blue canning pots are ideal) with an inverted lid (a rounded lid), place a fireplace brick. On top of the brick place the bowl. Put the roses in the pot; add enough flowers to reach the top of the brick. Pour in just enough water to cover the roses. The water should be just above the top of the brick.

2. Place the lid upside down on the pot. Turn on the stove and bring the water to a rolling boil, then lower heat to a slow steady simmer. As soon as the water begins to boil, toss two or three trays of ice cubes (or a bag of ice) on top of the lid.

3. You’ve now created a home still! As the water boils the steam rises, hits the top of the cold lid, and condenses. As it condenses it flows to the center of the lid and drops into the bowl. Every 20 minutes, quickly lift the lid and take out a tablespoon or two of the rose water. It’s time to stop when you have between a pint and a quart of water that smells and tastes strongly like roses.

Adapted from Rosemary Gladstar’s Herbs for Natural Beauty, by Rosemary Gladstar.

Strawberry Jam

If you’re new to canning, this is a great thing to start with since it’s fairly straightforward and the end result is both yummy and beautiful to behold.

Also, the smell that will fill your house while you’re simmering the jam on the stove is nothing short of divine – so sweet and summery it almost makes you want to cry. This smell stands in stark contrast to the intensely vinegary odor that pervades every nook and cranny of your house when you pickle foods — that smell will also make you want to cry, but not in a good way…

A few notes before you begin:

Don’t skip the macerating step if possible. If you don’t have time to let them sit overnight, even an hour is better than nothing.

And don’t cut any corners on your fruit – preserve the freshest and best berries you can find!


This recipe is adapted from a few sources including one of my favorite books, Put ‘Em Up by Sherri Brooks Vinton as well as the divine strawberry vanilla jam recipe in Marisa McClellan’s wonderful new book, Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round

The recipe below yields a sweet, flavorful, beautiful red jam that is nice and thick (not thin and syrupy like preserves).

Strawberry Jam

Makes 6 pint jars

Ingredients

* 16 cups cleaned, hulled, halved (or chopped, depending on the size) strawberries
* 6 cups granulated organic sugar
* 8 tablespoons powdered pectin
* 1/2 cup organic lemon juice (you can squeeze your own but for projects like this, I buy organic lemon juice in the little squeeze bottles, even the organic stuff is cheap (under $1.50 a bottle) and it saves some time)

Directions

1. Combine the strawberries and 2 cups of the sugar in a non-reactive pot. Let the mixture sit at room temperature until the sugar begins to pull the liquid out of the berries, about 15 to 30 minutes, then cover and refrigerate over night (this is called maceration.) If you don’t have time to wait that long, let sit for an hour or more.

2. When you’re ready to jam out, prepare a boiling water bath and 6 wide mouth pint jars, lids and bands (you can also use a combination of half-pint and pint jars if you prefer – we canned some of ours in the smaller jars as sometimes it’s nice to have the option of a smaller jar) according to the directions outlined here.

3. Take the macerated berries out of the fridge and put them and the rest of the ingredients in a large non-reactive pot (you may want to use a larger pot than you think you’ll need since the jam is going to boil and foam quite a bit and a bigger pot can help you prevent boiling over which gets very sticky when you’re dealing with this amount of sugar).

4. Bring to a boil over high heat (this jam will foam like crazy) and cook on high heat, stirring regularly for 15 to 20 minutes, until it takes on a thick, syrupy consistency. If you have an immersion blender, use it at this point to puree some of the fruit to whatever consistency you desire. If not, you can use a blender to puree about a third of the jam.

5. Let the jam boil vigorously until it reaches 220 F (105 C). If you don’t have a candy thermometer, you can judge that it is done when the bubbles begin to look thick and syrupy. You can also see if it’s sheeting — dip a spoon in the jam then hold it up and let it drip back into the pot – if the drips fall singly and seem liquid-y, it needs to cook longer. But if the drips have begun to run together and form a sheet as they drip, you’ve achieved your set and can stop cooking.

6. Remove the pot from the heat and ladle the jam into your prepared jars. Wipe the rims with a clean, wet cloth, apply the lids and rings and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Remove from the boiling water bath with your jar lifter and set in a draft-free place on a towel to cool. Don’t let the jars touch each other as they’re cooling.

7. The jars should begin to make a most delightful pop or ping noise ans the seal forms, pulling the centers of the lids down and making them slightly concave. Once the jars have cooled for 24 hours, you can check the seals by removing the bands. Grasp the jar by the edge of the lid and lift gently an inch or two off the towel-covered countertop. The lid should hold fast. If it does not hold, refrigerate the jam and use it within two weeks. If it does, store in a cool, dry place for up to a year.

Make Your Own Rose Petal Honey

 

On her last day in India, Gardenistacontributor, Maria had her first taste of rose petal honey. Back home, she couldn’t forget the taste—sensual, sublime, exotic, and familiar all at once, like India. Here, she shares her simple recipe to make your own. For the full story, go to DIY Rose Petal Honey on Gardenista.

Above: Virtually all roses are safe to eat; just make sure they’re organically grown (pesticide-free). From a friend’s rose garden, Maria picked a variety, washed and dried them, then placed petals from about six roses in a quart-size canning jar. She then poured 1 and a half pounds of local honey over the petals.

Above: You can experiment with the proportion of petals to honey, depending on how strong you want the infusion to taste.

Above: Maria recommends allowing the honey to steep for two weeks in a cupboard, turning the mixture every five days (as the petals tended to float to the top). Next, I strained out the petals in a colander, mashing the roses with a wooden spoon to wring out more honey. I poured the honey back into the jar; I use it on yogurt and scones, or as a condiment for cheese plates.

For more natural recipes and DIY inspiration, see Gardenista‘s posts Instant Summer Hammock and The Grow Bag, Beautified.