Homemade diffusers

I like the idea of infusing your home with happy scents, but abhor the idea of installing a manufactured scent using ingredients that include carcinogens, not to mention look hideous and waste plastic. So I was thrilled to see in the February issue of Whole Living (gotta love Ms. Martha!) featured some recipes for making your own diffusers using nothing more than essential oils, wooden dowels that you can buy for less than $2 at JoAnn Fabrics, and a few glass containers.

I bought the essential oils and a glass misting bottle at my local co-op, The Wedge, and hit JoAnn Fabrics for wooden dowels and two small glass vases.

I used my kitchen scissors to cut the dowels in half, dropped the oils into each container depending on where it was going - I decided to make a mister for the bedroom per the recommendation of the article, one glass diffuser for the living room, and one each for my office and the hubby's office. Here's the end result for one of the office editions.

While running errands always takes longer than anticipated - is this true for anyone else?! - the actual time making the project totaled 15 minutes to make 3 diffusers and a misting bottle. And yet, I can get hours of satisfaction out of the fact that I made something!

*Minneapolis*

Many people wonder why anyone lives in Minneapolis. This short film will give you a little feeling as to why it's such an amazing city...


Why We're Here: Twin Cities from Seven and Sixty Productions on Vimeo.

xoxo, sarah

Valentine's Cards

Chuck and I always fill our November and December with far too many events and chores. Therefore, it is nearly impossible to get presents mailed in time, much less cards to four times as many people. Borrowing a cue from Julia Child in her autobiography My Life in France (wonderful read!), we decided that we will start in on the tradition of sending Valentine's Day cards instead of holiday cards. This way, we have plenty more time in the relatively calm month of January to get this task going.

This year - our first - here's what we did:

We bought 8x11.5 kraft paper made of post-consumer recycled content (cannot remember the %) and matching envelopes at the local Paper Depot. We cut the paper into quarters. Then we cut apart our wallet-sized photo prints (easily ordered from SnapFish)...

Once we had the pieces prepped, we used our handy-dandy guide - made from a scrap of paper cut to size for the notecards and then cut out to slide a photo in perfectly centered - to tape the photo down with double-sided tape.

We stamped our "Happy Valentine's Day" message in red ink, signed the back, and mailed them off with another stamp (I just couldn't resist at Paper Source) and our Three Designing Women return address stamp on the back!

All-in-all, a relatively simply project that even the hubby could help with (unlike our DIY wedding invitations, which were 95% female-assembled)!

...So with that said, Happy Valentine's Day!

xoxo, sarah

Introductions

Hi! My name is Sarah and I am starting this blog as a place to reflect on my design accomplishments and hopes. I am 29 and live in Minneapolis with my husband Chuck and dog Gretel. I love walking around the lakes with the fam, reading, Parks and Recreation, environmental policy, fashion, my BFFs who are spread out across the country, yoga, home design, and natural foods.