29 Oct How to Make Kid-Friendly, Chemical-Free Air Fresheners

I love a good DIY. With two kids who love to get messy, a crafty project in the kitchen provides us with some quality time and entertainment. Our most recent project was to make kid-friendly, toxin-free air fresheners!

Now, I’m going to be honest, I don’t normally think: “Why don’t we whip up some kid-friendly, toxin-free air fresheners?” I was really just thinking we’d make some salt dough ornaments because the kids love cooking and painting. But our project evolved into air fresheners and WE LOVE THEM!

The Usual Salt Dough Recipe

2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water

Mix the ingredients together in a large bowl using a wooden spoon. Remove the dough from the bowl and knead it for about 5 minutes. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface and use cookie cutters to cut out any shapes that you like. Place the shapes on a greased baking sheet. Poke a small hole at the top of each shape using the tip of a drinking straw. Bake for 4 hours at 265 degrees.

We’d just gotten some fall-themed cookie cutters, so we thought this would be a great way to use them. We also used some Christmas cookie cutters so we could make some Christmas ornaments.

Once the shapes had cooled completely, we set up our homeschooling room to paint them. We just painted one side of each shape, but you could paint both sides if you have the patience to wait while one side dries.

Great for any Age and any Holiday!

We painted Halloween-themed shapes like bats and skulls and pumpkins, Thanksgiving-themed shapes like turkeys and leaves and Christmas-themed shapes like gingerbread men and candy canes. All kinds of fun shapes! Clark and Luci LOVE painting and were so excited to do all the different shapes.

The finished products looked pretty awesome. The kids’ enthusiasm even sucked me in and I enjoyed painting a few shapes myself!

As we were waiting for our ornaments to dry it occurred to me that many of the essential oil diffuser necklaces that I’d seen were made from a clay of some sort. I wondered how salt dough ornaments might work. So once they had dried I dropped one drop of essential oil onto the back of the ornament. It quickly absorbed into the clay and SMELLED AMAZING!

We tied string and ribbons through the holes that we had created with the straw and hung up our ornaments around the house. I hung one in the car and it still smells fantastic after several days!

Try making these air fresheners with your kids! It’s a fun and entertaining way to freshen your home (or car) without using the dangerous chemicals found in artificial fragrances!