Frugal Friday: Homemade Stovetop Air Freshener

Happy February, everyone one! I don't know about how things are in your neck of the woods, but around here, it's cold! In this bitterly cold weather, a nice warm, pleasantly fragrant kitchen is a wonderful thing to be blessed with.

I love a nice smelling house, I love simple, and I love cheap, so this homemade air freshener is just perfect for me!

1. Take a pot of water (I use a medium sized pot) and fill it up with some water.

2. Add your ingredients.

Here's where you can start getting a little creative. Using ingredients you already have in your home, you can experiment with different additions to get different smells.

Here's what I used this time:

1 Orange Peel (I used the orange for our smoothies this morning)

1 Tbs vanilla extract

2 Tbs ground cinnamon

Other suggestions for ingredients:

Lemon Peel 

Cloves

Nutmeg

Vanilla alone

Slices of oranges or lemons

Grapefruit slices

Cut open a tea bag, or use whole tea leaves

3. Heat mixture to boiling. If you're worried about your concoction boiling over, lay a wooden spoon across the top of your pot. 

4. Reduce heat and allow to simmer. Depending on the size of your pot and on how long you simmer the mixture, you may lose a lot of water. If this happens, just refill the pot with more water and keep going!

A great benefit to this stovetop freshener is that it also acts as a humidifier- it releases moisture into the air- which is great for the dry air of the winter months!