Essential Gifts

Although I still do not have any finished salt dough gift items to show you, I have been busy on my blog during the past few days.

After four months of blogging, I am slowly but surely beginning to understand the inner workings of a blog, hence the recipe for basic salt dough in the side bar. I have also provided links to other salt dough recipes I have posted from time to time and in doing so, I read my post about the aromatic dough and the different essential oils you can use to make it, again. Read more...

This morning I paid a quick visit to a client to discuss business cards for her hairdressing salon and noticed the lovely roses she has in her garden. She also has a lemon verbena bush next to her salon. I really love the clean citrus smell of this herb, so it was inevitable that I should come home with roses and lemon verbena leaves and flowers.

I also remembered while we were picking the roses, that I have a recipe to make fragrant oils, so if you are lucky enough to have roses or any other sweet scented flowers in your garden, why don't you try to make some.

I must warn you, it takes about two to three weeks for the oil to obtain a strong scent, but why let the rose and flower petals go to waste when you can use them to lend a personal touch to gifts.

You will need oil and lots of fresh flower or rose petals. Do not use petals that has been sprayed with insecticides. Wash all petals under running water to disperse of dust and insects. Dry the petals on a paper towel.

Place the petals in a glass bowl and fill with enough oil to cover the petals. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave to stand for two days on a window sill where morning sunlight comes through.

Strain the oil through a sieve or cheesecloth and squeeze out all the oil from the petals.

Add fresh petals to the oil. Repeat this process about ten times or until the oil has a very strong fragrance. Decant the oil into pretty bottles and seal tightly. Ideally fragrant oils should be stored in dark glass bottles, but if kept in a dark, cool place, it will keep well for a few months.

Flowers: Roses, carnations, violets, lavender and geranium, blossoms from fruit trees.
Herbs: All the mint varieties, lemon verbena, lemon grass or even leaves from lemon and orange trees.
Oils: I use plain vegetable/sunflower oil, but olive, almond, avocado or pure cosmetic oil that can be bought from pharmacies, are ideal for these fragrant oils.