Monday, August 20, 2012

Weekend Warrior: Lavender Water

My friend Emily and I met at BlogHer '11 in San Diego. We were both attendees of the "Birds of a Feather: Modern Marthas" session, and I'm pretty sure she was wearing a cute cardigan.

She's doing this Weekend Warriors link party thing on her blog right now, where she posts a weekly roundup of other bloggers' crafts and weekend projects, and it's inspired me to get off my butt a little and start getting stuff done. Luckily, the Weekend Warriors thing coincided with the end of our several months of weekend plans...I'm really looking forward to a few weeks of productive weekends!

I already posted about my diaper cake (though that was a few weeks ago), and since I spent much of this weekend recovering from the Disqus officewarming party on Friday night, I didn't get as much done this weekend as I wanted to. However, I did put away the camping gear, and I sorted the mail, got a car wash, did a bunch of laundry, watered the houseplants, unpacked from BlogHer and camping, took out the trash/recycling, organized my shoes (tres important!), made bolognese from scratch (this cookbook), and started a baby hat (which is actually about 2/3 done now).

And then I decided to make lavender water. Guess I'm a better Weekend Warrior than I thought.

Our Western-facing bedroom windows don't have screens, so we don't leave the windows open very often. The room tends to get a bit stuffy, and while I did have a chance to leave the windows open all day today, I've been thinking it would be nice to make a spray bottle of lavender water as a little all-natural air freshener. 

It was super simple -- I used a free 3 oz spray bottle (not even sure where it came from), 3 sprigs of lavender from the front yard, and water from the sink (was that information necessary?). The whole thing took about 30 seconds. Getting a decent photo for this blog post took much longer.
I highly recommend trying this easy-peasy solution to your stuffy room problems. Don't have a stuffy room problem? It also makes a lovely calming spray for your pillow/sheets before you go to bed, especially if it's hot outside. It's a nice perfume or "body mist" as well. If you don't like lavender, try using your favorite herb -- I bet basil or rosemary would be nice for the kitchen, and of course, lemon is always a winner. Just remember to change the water frequently so you don't get nasty mildewy plant water. Because ew.

I'm honestly shocked that it took me so long to do this. Like I said, super easy. And chemical free. And free free. Winning.

4 comments:

  1. Just wondering, would it help prevent mildew and clouditude if you replaced half of the water with cheap vodka? Just thinking of how to make one's own vanilla extract, you generally use vodka or grain alcohol in lieu of water to infuse the vanilla beans and prevent fouling. Perhaps if you used booze it would last longer, though it might make the scent stronger (which could be good or bad, I reckon) or somewhat acrid. I'm not sure. Hum de dum. How are you?

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  2. Oh interesting. I should try that! It's gotten a little brownish/cloudy-ish over the last couple of days, and I was thinking of changing the water out today. I'd be ok with stronger lavender scent (though not too much stronger, since it's pretty strong...but I could use less lavender blossoms if the alcohol is increasing the potency...hmmm chemistry?) - I wouldn't want vodka-scented sheets though!

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  3. Turns out it's not turning brown, it's turning purple! Wooo lavender!

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  4. Also? It is totally rancid now. I guess I have to make new water every week? Or try adding alcohol in the next batch?

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