scents of the past

Walking into a house suffused with gentle fragrance is one of life’s little pleasures. Lovely scents not only impart a sense of peace, but they also let guests know that just as much care is given to the details of living as to the inhabitants within.
_Emelie Tolley

The way my home smells, as well as the way it looks, is so.o.o important to me. I’m in love with the idea of turning our cottage into a sweeter place to be. The only problem I run into when it comes to filling the cottage with subtle fragrance pops up when I consider the cost involved. In case you haven’t noticed lately store-bought candles, sachets, room fresheners and the like are expensive. And quite often, the one’s I feel are not too expensive, are too unattractive to even consider taking home.

Contentment Cottage is all about frugal living – that means we don’t spend money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, to impress people who don’t care. Expensive smell-good items usually fall between the cracks of don’t have and don’t need. And, as usual, having more ingenuity than cash, over the years I’ve discovered a few ways to beat the high cost of beautifully suffusing my home with fragrance. Here is one of my favorites:

Sachets – A century ago homemakers made most of these sweeties themselves. Sachets were small scraps of fabric, often remnants from hand-sewn garments, stuffed with a blend of dried herbs like lavender, rose petals or mint. Tucked into drawers, behind sofa cushions or simply displayed resting on a table they impart a gentle sweetness to the air.

Several years ago, before the internet—when mail-order was in its zenith, we received a catalog from Neiman-Marcus offering sachet pillows: three, gift boxed, for $29.95. I promptly borrowed their design—stitching up three small (3″x3″) satin pillows, filling them with sachet, stacking them up, tying them up with ribbon and rosebuds and giving them a place of prominence on my desk and dressing table.