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How to Make Scented Pinecones

How To Make Scented Pinecones

There are a wide range of DIY gifts you can make for friends and family during the holidays, all of which use essential oils. This includes gifts like homemade candles, bath salts, and even shaving cream. However, if you want gifts that are easy to make or that you can use right in your own home, think of scented pinecones. You can use these to top Christmas gifts, give to others, or keep in your own home to enjoy the scents you use with them.

The Direct Approach

The first way you can make your scented pinecones is simply by combining pinecones with your essential oils. These will be much stronger in scent, and will also use more of your oils. If you have plenty to spare and not a lot of time, it can be a good option. All you need to do is get a large plastic bag, put your pinecones inside, and drop about 5-10 essential oils to start with. These can be the same scent or a combination of seasonal scents. Blends also work great for this. Zip up the plastic bag and give it a good shake. Let it sit there while the pinecones absorb the oils to get the strongest scent possible.

Combining Essential Oils with Water

If you don’t want the pinecones to use straight essential oils, you can use water as well. This not only allows the scent to be a little subtler and not so overpowering, but it also uses less of your oils so it costs less money as well. These are great when using them to top presents or add to other scented items at home when decorating for the holidays. For this idea, you will once again have pinecones in a large zipper plastic bag. However, instead of putting the oils directly into the bag, you will get a spray bottle with distilled water and add the oils to the spray bottle. Give it a gentle shake and spray the pinecones inside the bag. Once again, it helps to let them sit like this to soak up the oils and get the strongest scent you can.

These are two of the easiest ways to make scented pinecones. You might want to try them with just a few pinecones to see how you like the scent, then continue the method with more if you are going to make a big bowl of them or give them out as gifts.

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Apple Cider-Scented Gift Ideas

Apple Cider Scented Gift Ideas

If you are looking for more seasonal scents and blends, why not go with the smell of apple cider? You probably see a lot of blends with scents like Christmas trees and gingerbread cookies, but why not go with something subtle and seasonal? The great thing about the apple cider blend is that it can work for fall and winter, so you have even more opportunities to use it.

Blends You Can Make

Before looking into the different types of gifts that use apple cider blends, you first need to put together this blend. The apple cider doesn’t actually use apple, as there is not an ‘apple’ essential oil. Instead, you are going to use some of the other scents that remind you of this type of spiced cider, which really do make it taste just like your favorite cider to enjoy during the fall or winter holidays.

The scents you want to start with are ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, orange, and any other spices you can think of or that you have on hand. Some blends that work great as a cider blend include:

Orange, ginger, and cinnamon

Nutmeg, orange, and cinnamon

Experiment by adding one drop of each scent at a time to an empty amber glass bottle until you are happy with the final result.

Make Your Own Candles

There are a wide range of gifts you can make with your new apple cider-scented essential oil blend, starting with a simple one – candles. The great thing about candles is that they are something everyone can use. Depending on the recipient, they might put it on their kitchen counter, in their bathroom, or even in the office. It is a versatile gift that isn’t difficult to make when you start with a candle-making kit.

Try Apple Potpourri

What better way to use apple, orange, cinnamon, and other spices in an essential oil blend than to make potpourri that smells just like apple cider? If you want your home to have the smell of this blend without actually burning candles, then potpourri is the next best thing. No need to worry about lighting a candle, and you can just leave out a bowl or jar filled with the homemade potpourri. Just add your oils to dried flowers and leaves, put it in a bowl without a lid, and place it in an area of your home where you would like to have this smell.

 

 

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Top Essential Oil Scents for the Holidays

orange

Before you start choosing DIY gifts to make for the holidays or making products to keep in your own home, you need to make a list of the seasonal scents to use. While this doesn’t cover all possibilities, it is a great list to start with.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon and other spices re probably at the top of your list for scents to use during the holidays. No matter what blend or DIY product you are making, cinnamon always seems to show up during the holidays. Not only is it great in the winter and for holidays like Christmas and Hanukkah, but it can also work great in the fall with Thanksgiving-themed gifts. Cinnamon goes with so many different blend combinations, helping it to smell like baked goods, snickerdoodle cookies, a winter forest, and lots more.

Sweet Orange

Believe it or not, sweet orange is one of the top scents to use during the holidays, and will be found in a lot of different essential oil blends. The holiday and Christmas are when citrus fruits are often at their peak, so when you smell sweet and fragrant Christmas treats or the winter forest, you often also smell citrus fruits like orange and lemon. When looking at blends where it is supposed to smell like a forest outside, a day of sledding, sitting by the fire in a cabin, or smelling like Christmas trees, sweet orange is often included.

Peppermint

Another great scent to use for the holidays is peppermint. There are many ways to use this scent alone or for seasonal blends. First of all, it smells just like peppermint candy canes and other peppermint candy, so that alone is a great reason to use it. It can be added to a diffuser, put in a blend where you want it to be just like candy canes, or you can add it alongside most spice or fruity scents for a wonderful festive blend.

Other Spices

Cinnamon is a popular scent to use for seasonal blends, but it is by far not the only one. There are other spicy blends like nutmeg and clove that also work well in your DIY gifts and homemade items, whether alone or in blends. They also work great with woody scents like fir, cassia, and cedarwood for blends that smell like Christmas trees and the forest during the winter season.

 

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What is Allspice?

Allspice

When you begin gathering spices and seasonings to use in your fall dishes, you might come across something called allspice. While at first it seems like a combination of spices together, that is not what this is. Allspice is actually a type of berry that is often used in fall flavors like cider. Here is what you should know about allspice.

Ways to Use Allspice

First of all, you should know how to use allspice so you can get all the different health benefits. The flavor of allspice is similar to other fall spices you are accustomed to using, such as nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves. In fact, when you can’t get your hands on actual allspice, people often recommend using equal parts of these three spices, mixing them together, and making your very own allspice alternative. Therefore, anything you use these spices for, you can use allspice for. It is great when making a spiced apple cider, baked goods like cookies and cupcakes for the fall, and some savory dishes as well.

Health Benefits of Allspice

Now that you know some different ways you can use allspice during the fall and year-round, here are some health benefits of this spice to know about:

It reduces inflammation – First of all, allspice, like many other spices, has natural properties that allow it to reduce inflammation in the body. If you have arthritis or gout, you probably experience more pain and discomfort when your joints have inflammation. You can start reducing it naturally by using allspice more often.

You can improve your immunity – To boost your immunes system, start incorporating more herbs, fruits, veggies, and spices into your diet. Allspice is a great way to start improving your immune system, as it is a natural antifungal and antibacterial spice.

You get more antioxidants – Everyone wants more antioxidants, and spices like allspice can start adding more into your system. Some antioxidants that allspice has include tannins, eugenol, and quercetin. These are compounds that make it a good antioxidant spice for preventing illness and infections.

It helps with circulation – Allspice is also great for improving circulation in your system, thanks to minerals like iron and copper. With good circulation, you are promoting good red blood cell growth, which gives you more energy and helps with your health overall.

Even if allspice is unfamiliar to you, there are many reasons to use it. Start incorporating it into your dishes.

 

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Ways to Use Nutmeg in the Fall

Nutmeg

When you think of the flavors of fall, nutmeg is bound to come up. It goes perfectly with other fall spices like allspice, cinnamon, and ginger, and there are loads of ways to use it. It also happens to be good for you, with a long list of health benefits. Here are some different ways to use nutmeg during the fall season.

Make Baked Dishes

Nutmeg is commonly used in sweet and savory dishes, often with your baked goods. This spice is used alongside other spices when making baked goods in the fall, such as cupcakes, cookies, cakes, and pies. The fall is the perfect season for making all your spiced baked goods, from pumpkin spice cupcakes to apple pie and snickerdoodle cookies. Nutmeg is wonderful next to other spices like cinnamon, cloves, and even cardamom. Allspice is often used alongside nutmeg in these baked dishes as well.

Add Spice to Savory Dishes

While these spices are often used for baked goods, which tend to be on the sweeter side, you can definitely use nutmeg for your savory dishes as well. Try tasting nutmeg on its own, which has more of a nutty flavor than the other fall spices, which gives you a good idea of what dishes it would go perfect with. Try adding a little nutmeg to your soup, stew or chili to warm you up on a chilly night, or try adding it to dishes like lasagna or spaghetti. Some Mexican cuisine can also use a little nutmeg as you experiment with the various flavors you use in the kitchen. Nutmeg also happens to go great with many different vegetable dishes.

Make Sweet and Spiced Morning Drinks

You can try making some fall drinks for the morning or cold evenings by adding spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves. These spices are wonderful when added to your coffee or tea, chai latte, and even your spiced hot chocolate. If you want something cold, you can also use nutmeg and other spices to make a spiced apple cider.

Health Benefits of Nutmeg

Nutmeg isn’t just delicious and easy to add to your foods and drinks, but it is good for you. Nutmeg has many health benefits from helping to reduce pain in your body to improving your digestive system. It also helps with detoxifying your body and improving your oral health. As you can see, there are many reasons to use nutmeg during the fall!