I saw a thing on Pinterest about this lady who makes these scents in a jar. It was really interesting what natural things she would chop, slice, and pluck before throwing it all in a pot. It was like potpourri soup.
One of them was lemon, rosemary and vanilla extract. Supposedly the combination of the three makes the same scent that Williams Sonoma stores use. Did you know Pottery Barn was a Williams Sonoma store? Yeah. So basically my house doesn’t LOOK like a Pottery Barn catalog but I might be able to fool a blind person….until they puncture their foot on a Lego or fall from a rogue Matchbox car.
If you follow me on Instagram (I’m @bowerpowerblog….get on that), you saw the sneak peek of Will and his lemonade stand. We have a full post about that coming soon. Well, we had a plethora of lemons afterward and we simply snatched some rosemary plant in our very-dead garden. Seriously…rosemary isn’t supposed to winter over here and it has. for several years.
I threw about three lemons, three sprigs of rosemary and about a tablespoon of vanilla extract into the crock pot with about four cups of water and turned it on high. I left the top off and….whomp whomp. nothing.
My best friend Sherry asked me if it was working and I told her that if I stuck my head way down into the crock pot that it smelled fantastic.
So you can reuse the same solution as long as it still smells good to the ole sniffer….so after about 12 hours of my face in the crock pot, I took it to the stove top and put it in a regular pot. I turned it on high till it boiled and then turned it down to a simmer. Finally we could smell it in the living room.
Granted, I am not the kind of person that walks around the house with a boiling pot of hot fluids just to make the rooms smell good but it would be a fun gift if you had a budget and a rosemary bush. I plan on getting a bunch of old jars together, slicing up those lemons and making little ‘jars of pottery barn’ for special family and friends. Because you know what they say….when life hands you lemons, you pull out the pot and you get happy.
p.s. I do not endorse drug use
p.p.s. We are celebrating 7 years of marriage today! Wahoo! And we thought it would be fun to let y’all ask us those ‘burning questions’ – so head on over to our Facebook page and let er rip!
I’ve seen that on Pinterest a few times and have been curious about whether it really works. Thanks for sharing! Also, I thought I’d let you know there’s been something a little wonky about the pics in your posts lately; they’re really washed out when the page loads, kind of like how they used to look if you hovered over them with the mouse. If I move my cursor over them and then away, they become more visible. Not a big deal, but I wasn’t sure if you knew. In case it matters, I use Safari on a MacBook Pro. Oh, and happy anniversary!
Thanks! It might be a glitch with the pin-it code.
xo – kb
Yesterday 10/05 was our 46th anniversary so October wedding are lucky!! Congratulations.
I made this once on our stove top and my husband came home asking if I had made sausage. whomp whomp 🙁
I will have to give this a try, in a pot though for sure. I’ll do anything to get that wonderful pottery barn scent (wink). Happy Anniversary!
http://palsywalsyblog.blogspot.ca/
Pull out the pot and get happy, ya hippie! 😉
Happy Anniversary!
Happy Anniversary Katie!!! I love seeing your marriage play out on the blog and through your kiddos. Congratulations on 7 years.
Happy Anniversary! What a great day that was to get married! We are celebrating number seven today, too!
Just figured I mention that I was experiencing the same thing this morning. I though it was my computer. I’m using internet explorer.
Happy Anniversary!! Hope you have at least 10min of silence and relaxation with your boyfriend. That is rare to come by in my house, hehehe. We celebrate 7 years on the 20th. It’s a copper year. Still puzzled on what to get. I’m running out of time.
Happy anniversary!!!
FYI I also have the faded pic problem on a PC with Chrome.
AND the Facebook questions are all really good! (don’t have FB, otherwise I’d comment over there). I want you to answer all of them 🙂 Excited to read a post with more about your and Jeremy’s everyday lives with the kiddos and Monroe house!
Happy anniversary! I’m also having the same issue with the pictures. Im using chrome on my cellphone 🙂
That happened on yesterday’s post for me too. I use Google Chrome on an iMac.
Love the new look of your blog:) Congrats on 7 years of marriage! oh… and good to know you don’t endorse drug use:) LOL!
I can almost smell your concotion just by looking at the first photo! Yum! For gifts, I have seen people dehydrate orange slices, then package them up with cinnamon sticks and cloves for Christmas (with instructions on boiling it at home). You could probably do that with any mixture of herbs. And happy 7 year anniversary!
I did this with a similar recipe last winter. It smelled lovely!
I thought I’d mention that the rosemary should probably always survive for you. I used to work at a garden in Dallas (similar plant hardiness zone) and we had them as perennials. Now I’m at a garden in Virginia and we had 20-year-old plants that just died last winter when it was exceptionally cold (mine at home in a warm pocket lived). All that to say, you’re probably set for rosemary for life!
I have never tried lemons and rosemary in the pot – but we used to burn a woodstove and I would put cinnamon sticks and apple slices in that pot of water and oh man – it smelled heavenly…. Perhaps I will give the rosemary and lemon a go (but that combo does makes some KILLER cookies, which I do make frequently). PS my rosemary winters too and has taken OVER my garden. PSS HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!
Yum, sounds like an amazing combination I’ll have to try. I’m a big fan of homemade potpourris. We make a delicious smelling stove-top potpourri during the holidays with oranges, cloves, cranberries, and cinnamon sticks! It makes an awesome gift too – just plop it all in a pretty bag with a nice ribbon, et voila 🙂
OMG! That is too funny!! Thanks for the laugh 🙂
Tell Sherry I miss her and the fam , hope they come back soon even if it’s just family posts. 😉 hope your anniversary was great ! I’ll have to plant some rosemary again and give this a whirl.
Wahhhhh! I miss Sherry and YHL sooooo much. Thank goodness I still have you guys. :'(