Homemade Pine Car Air Freshener (But why?)

There's a new tallest-person in town putting on the star.

Oh, my loves! I was going to post recipes and latkes and cheer and who knows what all holiday else, but then there was pneumonia, and a sinus infection, and deadlines, and the twilight zone of college applications. Also, weird bouts of eggnog drinking that had me in bed by 8:30 with first Love and Trouble, then Conversations with Friends, and now Pachinko, all of which are wonderful books to curl up with should you find yourself in bed at 8:30 while someone on the crouton (i.e. the little futon) coughs and coughs from your bedroom floor and the humidifier blasts out its eucalyptus steam. Just saying.

Mostly all we do is talk in Snapper's little voice about how excited he is for Christmas. Every morning there are 30 ornaments on the floor.

So all I got is this weird last-minute craft, from my very special line of "drunk tutorials." JK! I'm 100% sober at the moment! Just really, really tired. Which is no reason for you not to make a DIY pine air freshener for your car or the car of a beloved! I have had it in my mind to make this for ages. I like that it's kind of Christmas-y, but then it won't give you that horrible off-season ennui when you see it in, like, February, because the pine air freshener is an actual non-holiday genre of object! Maybe you don't know what I'm talking about, which is also fine.

Anyhoo. Before you start, make sure you have some green felt and some spruce or pine essential oil. You can get the oil at a store like Whole Foods, or you can order it online. (I have this, and like it, but you could get this from Amazon.) Start by making your paper template. I Googled "pine tree template" and scrolled through images until I found the one I liked best, which was this:

But it would also be cute to use something more traditional, a la:

Or, of course, just freeform it like a normal person. Whatever you use, scale it to about 4 inches high. I did this by taking a screen shot of the image, and then resizing it in the Preview program on my Mac. (It's not rocket science or anything, but there's definitely always a moment when I'm sure how to do the thing I want to do on a computer, even if that thing is very very stupid and basic.) Print your template, and cut it out. 

Now stick it to some nice green felt with a piece of double tape or a pin and cut out two trees, one at a time. (I used some lovely wool craft felt that I happened to have, but you could use a shrunk sweater or even crappy acrylic felt. It doesn't matter that much, since I'm not thinking of this as a real heirloom type project, if you know what I mean.)

Now cut a piece of felt to sandwich in between the trees (one that won't extend beyond them), and saturate this piece of felt with essential oil. I mean, really go for it. Some will even bleed through the felt, and that's fine, although if you get a weird rash, don't come crying to me about it. 

Now pin the two trees together and stitch around them. I used white thread and a very basic little running stitch because I had this idea of how I wanted it to look, but you can do whatever kind of sewing you like with whatever kind of thread because the world is your holiday oyster!

Finish by tying a thread through for hanging, and voila! The world's weirdest holiday gift. 

Sending so much love to you all, now and always. xo