Take a walk with me around our property. I think spring is holding her breath right now! We are finally free from snow piles, but the grass is just waiting to see if it’s safe to turn green. I walked up the hill to see if the forsythia was starting to bud out. From a distance, the plants have a slightly yellow cast, but the buds are still pretty tight.
The garden on the hill is also waiting…no new green shoots yet for the echinacea or the lavender. They are my bookends for the garden.
From the hill, I wanted to document the two Butternut trees. From this view, the tree on the right is the one that is dying. Last year it barely had leaves. Every time we have a windstorm limbs come down. It really looks pretty sad in the summer. In the next month or so, when it isn’t so muddy, Bert will cut it down and use the wood in the shop stove. When he does that, I’ll try to document the process.
You can see the various planters near the patio just waiting for spring planting!
The back of the shop has our compost tumblers. One is in active use and the other just gets tumbled. Bert will add that compost to some of the garden soil. It’s amazing how much stuff we put in there and at the end of the season there’s hardly anything in it but black ‘gold.’
The space to the left of the shop under the spouting is ready and waiting for Bert to set up the rain barrels. He waits until we stop having freezing weather…frozen water in the plastic barrels could crack the plastic. Without plants in the garden, we don’t need that water yet anyway.
Here’s another view of the Butternut trees. You can see the one on the left looks pretty straggly.
And finally, our group of Red Bud trees struggle every year but Bert keeps trimming the dead limbs. I’m sure the birds would not be happy if we lost those trees…it houses our bird feeders and bird bath that the deer also visit every night.
Not much to see yet, but plan to follow along with my posts about our Garden of 2026. We are ready!
If you have questions or comments, please email me directly at maryjkisner@gmail.com.
I could just share with you the recipe to make Rye Pocket Pita Bread and pictures of the final product. However, I thought you might enjoy reading, or seeing pictures of, how it took three tries to get it right! Never be afraid to try something more than once (even if you set off the smoke alarm!). I now have a simple recipe to make sandwich buns, an old recipe for Rye Pocket Bread (which I will not use again!), and a great recipe that makes a delicious Pocket Pita Bread that uses Rye flour. Whew!
Finding a New Recipe
It all started with a recipe I found online called, ‘Soft & Fluffy Homemade Pita Bread.’ It sounded pretty easy but the layout of the ingredients list was awkward. I went ahead and mixed up a batch in my mixer. It was a pretty dry mix. I should have started with less flour and added more as needed. My mistake. Anyway, the finished rolls were tasty but did not make a ‘pocket’ when baked. The rolls were delicious and soft, so I revised the format of the recipe and renamed it, ‘Sandwich Buns.’ Below are pictures of the buns and the recipe so you can try it yourself. I did take pictures along the way, but I’m not going to post them all here…my goal was to find a good recipe to make flat breads that make a pocket.
Sandwich Buns
Finding an Old Recipe
I had remembered that about 45 years ago when my kids were little (1980 or so) I met a woman in a mother’s group. She was from the Middle East and was in State College because her husband was studying at Penn State. She graciously offered to show me how to make pita bread with pockets. I spent an afternoon at her apartment while she whipped up a huge batch of rye pocket bread. She was making enough to last her family for a week…it was their bread of choice. By the time I left I felt confident I could make them myself…and I did for quite a while.
Of course, time passed, the recipe stayed in my notebook and my life got more complicated. Needless to say, I had to really hunt to find the recipe again yesterday. The recipe called for plain yogurt and rye flour. I had neither! I knew I had some whole wheat flour that could substitute for the rye flour. I picked up some yogurt at the grocery store.
This time I decided to mix the dough up by hand…big mistake! My hand/arm strength could not mix the flour in well enough so I had to do most of the kneading by hand. Next batch…use the mixer!
It was a very soft dough, thanks to the yogurt. Everything worked well except…I tried to lay the circles of dough on cornmeal on the cookie sheet. Might have worked if I hadn’t made the oven too hot. The old recipe called for 500 degreesF and it was just too hot for the loose cornmeal on the cookie sheets. Just as I was taking the cookie sheets out of the oven the cornmeal was smoking hot and of course the smoke alarms were set off! Geez!
In the end, the pocket bread made fairly nice pockets but I’ve now revised the old recipe and will try it again tomorrow. I now have a small bag of rye flour, enough yogurt to make the recipe again, and will make the oven temperature only 425 to 450 degreesF.
So, here is the revised Rye Pocket Bread recipe and a picture of the finished products.
Rye Pocket Bread
Pocket Bread with Sloppy Joe
Sometimes, making a new (old)recipe leads to some changes. In this case, I ended up with two good recipes and one old recipe that got ‘retired.’
If you have comments or questions, please email me directly at maryjkisner@gmail.com. Let me know if you’d like me to post the step-by-step to make this recipe!
I apologize for my silence for the last two weeks! It’s been a long slog of VERY cold weather and the lack of sunshine has been tough. We’re finally getting a few 20-degree days and occasional sunshine, so things are looking up. I have not been very motivated to do much except make bracelets and listen to music.
I wanted to share how my own blog posts have helped me think about projects I’ve done and what I’d like to try next. I also realized how nice it was I had pictures to remind me HOW I did things and if the results were worth it! I’d like to share 5 projects I worked on these last two weeks and how they pulled me through my mid-winter funk!
#1: Making Cinnamon Apple Cake
I had a few apples that needed to be eaten, cooked or pitched soon. Bert suggested I make an Apple Cake…but if you’ve followed along, I’ve made 4 different cakes and not all have been delicious. So, to help me remember, I looked up the four posts that described them. You can see them here:
After reading those four posts and looking at the pictures, we decided we liked the cinnamon apple cake the best, so that’s what I made last week.
#2: Making Sweet Potato Yeast Bread
Next, I wanted to bake bread…my go-to-activity when it’s really cold and snowy! In the freezer I found mashed sweet potato (in a 1-cup container) and a bag of whole wheat flour that I had ground a few months ago. I found my post about making Sweet Potato Yeast bread (https://marykisner.com/making-sweet-potato-yeast-bread/). It made 3 small loaves…just right to go with homemade soup during the snowstorm!
When I got done, I remembered I had earlier made Vegan Sweet Potato Buns and could have made them instead. I’ll do that next time I feel like baking! Check out that recipe here: https://marykisner.com/making-vegan-sweet-potato-buns/
#3: Making Nail Serum for a Friend
While we were snowbound, I had a text from a friend who asked if I still had any of my nail serum and cuticle butter left. It’s been a while since I made both, so I sorted through my bins of stuff to see if I had any left.
I did have a bunch of tiny cuticle butter containers left but no nail serum (in rollerball containers). I pulled out the blog post for the recipe to make more nail serum. I ended up making a few. You can read about it here: https://marykisner.com/essential-oils-and-nail-care/
#4: Sharing Links about the Greyhounds
This last week I also had a query from a greyhound owner about whether I still made coats for greyhounds. I had to explain my dilemma about making the coats. I have not made coats for at least a year. I was basically burned out and was turning my attention to my bracelets. I am still able to do custom orders for coats, but now that JoAnn Fabrics is out of business, affordable fleece fabric is hard to find. I have found a few offerings on Amazon, but they are mostly solid colors and very expensive. To buy the fabric (in one color) to make one coat could cost $45-60. Then, my time to make the coat and mail it to a customer is another $50. I just don’t see that being feasible.
I ended up sharing with the greyhound owner the six blog posts I’ve written about my work with the greyhounds:
As I’ve mentioned many times, I’m willing to share my patterns for the coats and teach someone else how to make them. We worked hard to design them so they fit well. I’m proud of how cozy they are. Of course, my work with Nittany Greyhounds was a volunteer job so there isn’t much money in making them although Nittany always paid for the fabric. I have seen coats being sold on Etsy for $75-100. I just can’t see it’s a lucrative activity without a good source of affordable fleece. So far, I have found few people who even know how to sew.
#5: Designing a New Bracelet for Well-Being
Finally, around all the baking, nail serum making and greyhound conversations I was thinking about designing a new bracelet for general well-being. Most of my specialty bracelets start with the idea that the best thing I can make will help a person stay balanced and is focused on keeping their chakras strong and aligned. The chakras are the energy centers in the body and when one is blocked or weak from illness, stress or environmental conditions my focused intentions always target bringing a person’s energy back into balance. The various stones have their own vibrations that help that intention.
The latest bracelet I’ve made is based around two sets of the chakra stones, plus smoky quartz, clear quartz and black onyx. Those last three stones provide grounding, clarity and inner strength for whatever issue a person is facing.
Then I made a key chain accessory to go with the bracelet so well-being can be carried with you. Making that set was fun and kept my mind busy as the snow piled up!
Here is the description that I include with each bracelet. The key chain accessory just has fewer beads but still has the two sets of chakra stones.
So, that’s what I’ve been doing! Silence doesn’t mean I’m not doing stuff. I may just be revisiting posts to try something again. I hope you are staying warm (or cool) depending where you live!
If you have comments or questions, please email me directly at maryjkisner@gmail.com.
Yesterday I wrote about how the charms on a charm bracelet could prompt recall of memories. I truly think I should consider making a new charm bracelet for myself…just in case my memory slips a little. I might be about to jog my memory by thinking about individual charms like my sewing machine, a kitchen mixer or my greyhound charm. You can read about the charms at https://marykisner.com/preserving-memories-with-a-charm-bracelet/
While I was thinking about various charms for that post, I remembered a charm bracelet that had been tucked in with my mother’s jewelry. I hadn’t thought about it in years, and she passed away in 1988. the bracelet and charms fit into a tiny box. I vaguely remember she picked up these charms on one or more of my parent’s overseas trips…one charm in each place/country they visited. She never really told me about them, plus I was home with two toddlers and just couldn’t relate at that time. When she passed, all chance of asking about them was gone. Of course, my dad lived another 22 years, but of course that little box was tucked away…out of sight, out of mind! The lesson here is…if you have an assortment of charms in your jewelry box that have a memory attached, consider writing down what they mean to you…otherwise, you’ll be passing on a mystery to someone else!
I carefully emptied the box to take pictures of the charms. I know most of their travels were to and from Southeast Asia, but I’m sure they had stops along the way. These charms were silver (or tin?) and many were quite delicate. I don’t know if they were arranged in any specific order or if she had a favorite.
The mystery is…I have no ‘stories’ or ‘memories’ to go with the charms. I don’t know what countries they are from. I’ll share the pictures below. If you recognize a charm that represents a specific country I’d love to hear about it! Otherwise, imagine the stories I could make up using these charms to tie an adventure together! Any fiction writers out there?
My favorite charm in the whole pile…this very delicate bike with a seat for a passenger! I know I saw those in the Philippines…in 1955-56!
Please email me directly if you have comments or questions (maryjkisner@gmail.com) I also post links to this article on Facebook and you can comment there. Enjoy!
I just finished reading a heart-warming novel by Pamela Raleigh entitled, “The Memory Bracelet.” The story follows a grandmother who is suffering with Alzheimer’s and her granddaughter. The story is summarized on Amazon as follows:
‘When college sophomore Tessa Wilde visits her Alzheimer’s-stricken grandmother Esther, a shocking secret slips out, one that threatens Tessa’s identity and raises old feelings of betrayal and rejection. The only way to pursue the truth, though, is to explore those unreliable memories.
But can she separate Esther’s ramblings of a storied past from the effects of Alzheimer’s?
Relying on Grandmother’s stories that live in the charms of her beloved bracelet, Tessa pushes her grandmother to reveal the truths that have been hidden for too long. As Esther’s health deteriorates and communication fails, Tessa faces the ultimate question: can she forgive Grandmother for half-spilled secrets and an unreconciled relationship? And face the fact that they’re more alike than they are different?
Perfect for fans of Barbara Davis and Kristan Higgins, The Memory Bracelet is a gripping yet heartwarming novel about the pain resulting from complicated relationships, carried from one generation to the next, and the fierce determination to heal them.’
The story backflashes are triggered by the charms on the grandmother’s bracelet. While the reader can follow the various experiences prompted by the charms, the granddaughter does not know the whole story. The grandmother struggles to share what lessons were learned made even more difficult with her inability to speak clearly and coherently thanks to the influence of Alzheimer’s.
It was a very touching story and had me thinking about charms that would trigger my memories of things I’ve done in my life…sort of a tangible resume. If I were to build a charm bracelet for myself, what would I include?
I started making a list of charms that would represent my life. Then I went to Amazon to see if they had charms to fit. I’m sure I could find fancy, expensive gold and silver charms, but since this was just for fun, I just did an easy search.
For example, I’ve been sewing since Junior High School. How about a sewing machine charm?
Cute! My first machine was my mother’s Singer Featherweight machine…black just like this!
If I wanted to remind myself of my quilting experiences, there’s a charm for that!
Or, I might find something in this assortment:
When I was first teaching, I also studied Cosmetology…to be a hairdresser. Of course, it was too much to do both, but I did learn to cut hair. (Yes…I’m a Beauty School Dropout!). However, I’ve been cutting hair for family for 55 years! And yes, there’s a charm for that!
How about all the writing I’ve done over the years…from curriculum materials to my blog! I did start with a manual typewriter! There’s a charm for that!
And then there are all the books I’ve read! Yes, there’s a charm for that!
When I think of all the love I’ve given to the Greyhounds, I realized I already had a charm for that!
I can’t forget how much I’ve enjoyed gardening:
and Baking/Cooking (this one is just too cute!)
I’m sure if I wanted to do it, I could assemble quite a nice charm bracelet of my life. Since I really don’t like a noisy, clanking bracelet and would probably never wear it, I think these pictures would be enough to jog my memory of all the many things I’ve done, or made, or loved!
What pictures or charms would you assemble to represent your life experiences? It might be a way to start the conversation with our grandchildren about things we’ve done…or encourage them to start their own collection. Enjoy!
We anticipate that the predicted snow storm for this weekend will dump a significant amount of snow on us. I saw a picture on Facebook of the Blizzard of 1978. I remember that winter well…Ted was just turning two and Kathy was 3 months old. It felt like we didn’t go outside for a month! Our sidewalk looked like a tunnel, just like the street in the photo below:
Here is the caption for the photo:
Snowfall during the Blizzard of 1978 hit Pennsylvania with a wild regional split, backed by some eye-opening stats. Northwestern PA took the hardest punch, with Erie and the Lake Erie snowbelt piling up 20 to 30 inches, boosted by intense lake-effect bands. The Laurel Highlands and ridges of southwestern PA stacked 15 to 25 inches, with wind gusts topping 40 to 50 mph, creating drifts that climbed over 6 feet in spots. Central Pennsylvania averaged 10 to 18 inches, though open farmland saw whiteouts so severe that PennDOT reported hundreds of road closures. Southeastern PA saw lighter totals, generally 4 to 10 inches, but powerful winds and sub-zero wind chills created dangerous travel conditions and widespread disruptions. Overall, the storm remains one of the most chaotic and wind-driven winter events Pennsylvania endured during the late 1970s.
Hopefully, we have better methods of snow removal now but already various appointments are being postponed or cancelled for Monday!
Our preparations for the snow storm are not too complicated…mostly because we are already prepared for the power to go out. Bert handles things like the generator, the wood stove in the basement and the snow blower. I ran a load of laundry and tried to make sure we have what we need for food…although, other than milk and eggs we could probably skip a run to the store. The sun is shining right now and I wanted some apples, so I did run to the grocery store and picked up milk and eggs! (smile)
When bad weather is predicted, I seem to get in the mood to bake bread…but at the moment, I have enough homemade bread in the freezer. I did take a whole chicken out of the freezer and will roast it tomorrow. I’ll take the time to simmer the bones to make soup stock. Somehow, making soup stock feels like the right thing to do when we could be snowbound! Chicken noodle soup anyone?
I’ve found the best thing to do during a snowstorm is to dream about our 2026 garden plans. This year we did receive assorted seed catalogs…this is a picture from last year:
However, we did not get one from Burpee…our favorite Pennsylvania seed company. We kept waiting…but no catalog in the mail. It looks like we had to ‘request’ a catalog to be sent. Interesting. We ordered seeds online from them.
First, we had to consider our garden space, what we grew in the past and what worked. I know I have enough tomatoes and tomato sauce canned and will probably not need to do more this year so maybe fewer tomato plants. Our zucchini was fun but took up a lot of space. I can easily buy them at the Farmers Market when I’m in the mood. The cherry tomatoes were cute but the skins were tough (thanks to the weather) so we’ll skip them this year. The pumpkins were impressive but I think we fed all the groundhogs in the neighborhood!
So, here are the spaces we have available:
Three planters on the patio and maybe a pot of something:
Two raised/fenced beds off the patio (the back one already planted with asparagus roots):
The fenced garden on the hill (already planted with lavender on one end and echinacea at the other end):
And of course, the space in front of the wood pile is available…not sure what will happen there!
It seems we have lots of room, but we’re certainly not a truck farm!
After much discussion, we decided to focus on what we know works and fill in with flowers.
Our seed order arrived last week! I deliberately copied out the photos of the actual vegetables we ordered…just to see if what we grow looks like the picture. (Haha…never happens, but I can always dream!)
I hope that whatever weather you are experiencing now, you can take time to dream about what you are going to do this spring. I like to have a vision for the future to help me deal with what’s happening now! Enjoy!
Remember, if you have comments or questions please email me directly at maryjkisner@gmail.com.
This is it! Finally, the last day of 2025! I should feel sad…oops no I don’t (smile)! It has felt like a long slog…more medical appointments than I wanted to endure! Each social commitment felt good when completed and I could check it off the list. Turning the page to a new month provided some relief…tossing the calendar page with too many appointments scribbled in and crossed off and changed to a new date or time. I’ve felt like I’ve been at the mercy of other folk’s schedules like Doctors, Dentists and follow-up appointments.
When I look back at this year, I realize I tried to summarize the year with my one-page Christmas letter. I’ll share the letter here (some of you received it already…sorry to repeat). However, I try to not burden anyone with too many details at Christmas time. I’ll post the letter in sections and expand with a few more pictures. Mostly, I’d like to share what I’ve been doing with my bracelets as I get ready for the summer craft festival. So, here is the Christmas letter with additional info:
Christmas 2025
Greeting Family and Friends!
We hope this yearly letter finds you and yours healthy, wealthy and wise! I always wanted to say that! Of course, at our age healthy is a variable we’re all dealing with. Wealthy…well we didn’t win the lottery but we’re wealthy with friends…and we feel especially wise about all the choices we’ve made over the last 79 years, considering there is absolutely nothing we can do to change anything!
Bert had a good year with no major health issues or surgeries. Lately, that’s our measure of success! He had fun with the garden this year and planted a huge pumpkin patch. It dwarfed the wood pile! It also attracted the neighborhood groundhogs who thought we had planted them just for their dining pleasure!
The garden did well this year in spite of sporadic rain/no rain issues. I now have quite a few good zucchini recipes and we have enough tomato sauce for the year!
The Echinacea always made me smile!
I started the year thinking I could get really creative with my bead bracelets and was looking forward to the summer festival. Of course, my yearly mammogram in January showed evidence of cancer. The rest of the year was spent dealing with more Xrays, MRI, Lumpectomy and Radiation. All done for now!
I will say the bracelets gave me a purpose and something to do when I didn’t feel like doing anything else. The festival in July was very successful and I’m gearing up for next year. Hopefully, I won’t be distracted with any more health issues in 2026!
The last week or two I’ve been repackaging my specialty bracelets so I can redesign my festival booth. Marketing is not my strength so I’m hoping I’ll get some good advice from friends about how to display the bracelets.
Last year my booth was pretty simple. Luckily, I was with my friend Toni because I certainly couldn’t fill up the whole booth myself!
Obviously, I need to change the display, so I’m thinking about a grid wall behind my table like these:
Then, I’m repackaging all my specialty bracelets so each bag looks like this:
I now have 42 different bracelets that I can arrange/hang on the grid wall. That will certainly fill up the backdrop space and I’ll move my sign above the grid wall. It should be more visible from a distance!
I will still have simple single stone bracelets but they can be organized by size. People seemed to like being able to search through the small bins for their favorite beads and colors.
Here’s my Table of Contents for the specialty bracelet catalog:
Finally, I need to make a decision about how to accept payment for bracelets. I REALLY don’t want to commit to accepting credit cards. While I do have PayPal, cash is so much easier. I found last year cash worked well except for the teenagers/college-age kids…they wanted to use VENMO and something else. I guess I have a few months to figure it out. Any suggestions will be considered.
To wrap up…we made it through Christmas at Kathy’s home…a fun time for all. Kathy always has a wonderful Christmas Eve/Morning planned for all of us. I so appreciate her efforts! We desperately try to remember to take pictures…usually as we’re putting our coats on!
Bert and I both manage to wear red on Christmas morning. I certainly don’t have a lot of red items in my closet!
Ben and Anna are growing up!
Even Daisy was a happy dog to have us all there!
Please email me directly if you have comments, questions or advice about using VENMO (or others). maryjkisner@gmail.com
Today I tried a simple muffin recipe that turned out great! It was published as a gluten-free recipe so I just substituted all-purpose flour for the gluten-free flour. The muffins were tasty and could complement soup or chili. With a little maple syrup or cinnamon/sugar they could satisfy like a pancake and have more protein with the cheese added! Maybe even for Christmas morning!
Here is the recipe:
Making the Muffins
The ingredient list was pretty simple. I had everything on hand. I was also excited to try my new silicone muffin pan…no need for grease or muffin papers!
First step. Add the first 4 ingredients to a big bowl: flour, baking powder, salt, sugar.
Next, I added one at a time, the cheese, melted butter, milk and egg. It easily mixed into a soft batter.
I scooped out the batter, one tablespoon at a time, into my silicone muffin pan. Here’s the pan ready to bake in a 400 degree F oven.
I did sprinkle a little coarse sugar on top of each one just for the crunch. In 25 minutes they were golden brown and still moist inside. When completely cool, the outside of the muffin was quite firm, but the inside was soft. I think they would travel well without falling apart.
Delicious!
What an easy way to add muffins to any meal! Give it a try! Enjoy! As always, please email me directly if you have comments or questions: maryjkisner@gmail.com
The Christmas season has always been associated with my dad’s birthday… December 22. He always said his birthday was no big deal when growing up because often he would just be handed one of his wrapped Christmas gifts early. His dad’s birthday was December 26, so Paul learned young that he and his dad would have their birthday celebrations wrapped into the Christmas festivities.
My dad, Paul Bixby (December 22, 1913 to December 14, 2012) lived a long productive life. His career in education ranged from teaching in a one room school in Minnesota to a high school principal in New Jersey to Assistant Dean of the College of Education at Penn State.
In his later years, after my mother died (1988) and his second wife died (2000), he was able to connect more with his kids, grandkids and great grandkids. For several years, his birthday became the time when we would host a birthday picnic in our shop for as many relatives who could travel to visit. A few pictures from his 95th birthday picnic prompted me to search for as many pictures as I could easily find of him with his kids, grandkids and a few great grandkids. They were good memories for me since it has now been 13 years since he died. How time flies!
So, if you’ll forgive me, here are some special memories for me this Christmas!
Paul with Luca.
Some of the party guests!
Paul with Erin and Jean:
Paul with Ben…who slept through it all.
Paul with Ben…a few years later.
Paul and Aislinn.
Paul and Annika.
Paul with Aislinn and Ted.
Front row: Kathy, Jean, Paul, Mary. Back row: Lita, Mark, Bert
Front row: Todd, Anh, Gabriel, Quinn, Parker, Pam, Ron. Back row: Teresa, Paul, Mark.
And last…but not least…Paul holding newborn Anna. He died about 6 weeks later. I’m so sorry he didn’t get to really meet her…she slept through it all!
So, this Christmas, we will be thinking about Paul on his birthday (Dec. 22)! He would have been 112 years old!
I posted this story 4 years ago! Can’t believe it! This simple air freshener works as designed and doesn’t overwhelm me…even when it’s cold out and the heat is blasting through the car!
December 8, 2021
I recently bought an air freshener for my car at the drug store counter. It clipped onto the vent on the dash. I lasted about 3 minutes before I threw it out…the scent was so strong and sickening I couldn’t stand it. It seemed like a good idea at the time!
Then I saw an ad online that showed some air fresheners made of a simple chunk of wood with a clip attached. You were supposed to add drops of your own preferred essential or fragrance oil. At least I could choose the scent!
I found some samples online by just typing in “wood air freshener for the car.” There were interesting shapes like flowers with a clip on the back, or slices of a tree branch meant to hang on the mirror.
I wasn’t sure the oils would soak in properly and then provide a nice smell in the car without being overpowering.
With Bert’s help, and a bag full of wood scraps that he uses for all kinds of little projects, we gave it a try.
First, I ordered the clips from Amazon…they were called “Square Head Car Air Vent Clips.” A bag of 20 clips were $6.99.
They were a very tight clip. Next challenge…finding some chunks of wood. Bert came in with some round fairly flat disks to see if they might work. The groove around the center could capture the oil until it soaked in.
He experimented with how to attach the clip to the back. Plain glue would not work because of the kind of stress it would be under to pull it from the vent. He found a way to put a screw on each side of the base, with the edge of the screw overlapping the base. It worked great for now. He had some other ideas for the next batch.
Now that the base was secured, I needed to add drops of scented oil…I chose Lavender fragrance oil…mostly because I had a big bottle of it, and I could stand the scent.
First, I had to figure out a way to keep the whole thing vertical so the oil wouldn’t drip off before it soaked into the wood. I had this small box that held the roller balls in shipping. The clip just fit over the center divider and kept it upright while I added the oil.
Using the dropper, I filled the center ring and let it soak in. I did that several times over the next few days. Then I put it in the car vent. It helped to be driving around with the heated air coming through the vent. The first day it was quite noticeable, but by the second day it was very pleasant. Not sure how long it will last, but when I can’t smell it anymore, I’ll pull it out of the vent, bring it into the house, add more oil and put it back in the car.
Bert did make me five of these so I could switch up the scents. I’ll store them in labeled zip bags so I know which one had which oil. Pretty slick! Try it yourself! Enjoy!
