Guest Post: Erin Boyle’s Miniature Forest Infusion
Will make drawers, boots, enclosed spaces smell great and even the sewing-incapable (hello) can make one.
Hello out there~
Another guest post?? Yes! After an insane whirlwind/year of illness, I lost my stepdad this September. While I’m wading through both the emotional and logistical muck of it, some of my talented friends and peers are stepping in to put together some special Treehouse-y nuggets for you all. They truly very much extremely rule. Thank you!!
This week, we have an of , and Making Things, and generally being a fun/funny/insightful/creative person with an excellent internal compass on the internet for a good little bit. Recently joining her and ’s orbit has been one of the highlights of this calendar year, I must say! I love the way that Erin writes and am just so pleased to have an example of it here, for you. Enjoy!
The year was 1994. The place was the very last row of a yellow school bus. The game was the pen-and-pencil future-predicting MASH. The vibe? A special mix of naivete, hubris, and daydreaming accessible only to ten-year-olds mildly misbehaving on a school field trip.
On lined pages ripped out from composition notebooks, my friends and I scribbled lists of what we hoped our futures might include and counted our way toward divining what lay ahead. I was personally ambivalent about which of the O’Neill twins I might marry and whether I’d drive a forest green Saab 900 or a red one, but when it came to the place I’d live, I remember crossing my fingers that I’d land on Maine.
The summer before, my family had spent two weeks camping in Acadia National Park and I’d been smitten not only with the rugged Atlantic coastline and salty sea air, but with the balsam fir-scented tourist traps that lined the streets of Bar Harbor. As an adult, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m not married to an O’Neill brother or driving an adorable 90s hatchback, but I still find myself yearning for an alternate life in Maine.
As the days shorten and my grasp on my summer adventures to Maine loosens, a well-situated bit of balsam can provide a temporary escape hatch—a comforting scent memory that transports me directly back to one of my favorite places.
It’s possible to fill a muslin spice sack with dried things that smell good, throw it into your underwear drawer, and call it a day. But if you have fabric scraps that need using and you want to elevate your closet-scenting game, or offer a comforting gift to a friend, an envelope-style hanging sachet is a very low-lift project to consider. The finished project is handy and pretty and makes it easy to swap out old balsam fir for fresh, when the time comes.
This project is adapted from Making Things: Finding Use, Meaning, and Satisfaction Crafting Everyday Objects, a book I co-wrote with my friend and cup-holder-transformer-extraordinaire,
.Hanging Balsam Fir Sachets
What you need:
Dried balsam fir in a muslin spice sack
A piece of fabric that is roughly two and a half times longer and 1 inch wider than your spice sack.
Twill tape or ribbon, roughly 3 inches long
Sewing pins*
Needle and thread*
* Using sewing pins and a sewing machine makes very quick work of this project, but if you have only a needle and thread available, this is a perfect project for practicing your hand sewing and throwing caution to the wind.
Instructions:
Fold over and hem the two short sides of your fabric*.
With the right side of the fabric facing up, overlap the two short (hemmed) edges by 1 inch and pin in place.
Fold the twill tape in half and place it in between the layers of fabric so that the loop lies hidden inside and the ends are poking out through one of the sides.
Sew up both sides, making sure to sew over the tape ends, securing them in place.
Trim loose threads and reverse the envelope, gently poking out the four corners. Insert the balsam-filled spice sack through the open center flap and hang where desired.
*Hemming isn’t strictly necessary here. I used an existing selvedge edge on my exterior flap and a raw hedge on the inside.
miniature forest infusion!!