Tips to Make Your Home Feel Special in Any Season

Everyday and in every season our home is center stage of our lives, for good or for bad our home has a huge impact on our lives. With a few choices and changes we can make our home feel special in all seasons of the year. Being festive doesn't have to start and end with your favorite holiday.

Fragrance

Spray linens throughout home to keep fresh smelling and impart a favorite essence. Spray lightly over clothes in closet for a gentle lingering scent. Spray bed linens with a relaxing scent to send you off to sleep. Lavender is my favorite, mix a few drops of lavender essence oil in a little water in spray bottle, shake well to mix and spray. There are several essence oils that are known for their relaxing qualities, rose, peppermint, lavender, sandalwood and others. Do your research and then blend to your hearts delight.

If you want to mix a large batch use distilled water and little bit of vodka in mixture. Recipe page: http://www.simplyhomeremedies.com/homemade-linen-spray

Use essence oil diffusers or burners in rooms to impart a personal fragrance to your home in a gentle way not the overpowering smell of deodorizer sprays or plug-ins. You can mix your own fragrance each time you use to suit your mood or mix one that will become your own personal fragrance that is identifiable with you and your home. I have several oils, lavender, rose, night jasmine, cinnamon, orange lemon grass and others that are favorites which all blend nicely together. A drop or two of cinnamon added to orange is warm and inviting. Lavender or night jasmine mixed with lemon grass smells clean and crisp. I use these mixtures in my laundry room for a fresh scent that makes this room nice to be in. A drop or two of cinnamon mixed with the flowery essences gives the light impression of carnations or other spicy flowers and much like walking into a fragrant spring or summer garden. Experiment it is fun and will give your home a lift not only to the olfactory glands, but for all your senses as it affects your sense of calm and well being.

Color

To build on the scent you have created above add some fresh color to your room by season. We all know color affects the way we feel and the way we think about our environment. As the seasons change we can use color very effectively to make the most of these changes in our home. Simple things like changing candles, placemats, towels and linens in a room can change the whole feel of the room. A fruit bowl full of seasonal fruit adds seasonal color to a room and brings the season to your finger tips with beauty and great nutrition. All these things help to transition from one season to the next. It brings a level of interest and expectancy to your home. You and others will feel more attune to the season and to the joys that each season brings.

Plants

Plants are an easy way to add color and beauty to any room. Plants do not only add beauty but they add oxygen and clean the air in your home. Adding a new plant to a room or even repotting and grooming existing plants can make a huge difference in the way a room looks and feels. Seasonal plants are a great way to bring the season into your home. Of course for the winter season there are the obvious poinsettias at Christmas, but you can also plant paper white bulbs in late October or early November and have wonderful fragrant blooms at Christmas. You can also do red amaryllis bulbs at the same time and have large beautiful red blooms to adorn your winter rooms. Or filling vases with cut winter greens and berries is an easy and beautiful way to add nature's glamour to your rooms (the cut evergreens, pine, fir, cedar, spruce, etc. smell incredible). Many of us have these trees or shrubs growing in our yards and can be easily clipped and brought inside.

Spring flowers and potted herbs are fragrant and beautiful and bring a sense of anticipation of spring to your home while the snow is still clinging to sidewalks. As soon as spring flowers start to appear in the stores I buy some and pot them in pretty pots and bring the spring home. I love to buy primroses in different colors in small pots and arrange them in a large low serving dish and use as a gorgeous and inexpensive center piece. I don't repot them I just arrange them in the dish and cover base of pots with pretty fabric napkin that picks up color of flowers. Once the blooms start to fade I take the plants and place in soil outside in garden, where they bloom year after year in the spring and early summer. Another blooming plant I love for indoors year round is the geranium. They are easy to grow with direct light and will bloom continually to your delight!

Fresh herbs, mmmm, what a wonderful way to bring nature's bounty to your home, not only are they beautiful and fragrant, but are a wonderful addition to your meals. Of course these can also be transplanted outdoors either in container gardens or in your garden soil once it warms up outside. Some herbs can be wintered over indoors and then returned outside and others can survive the winter even in colder climates if dug into the ground in warmest area of yard. Not all herbs are perennials, some are bi-annuals and some are annuals so choose and plant accordingly.

Cut flowers in any season are a delight to the senses and make any room feel dressed up and ready for a special occasion, even if it is just Tuesday night dinner. Fresh flowers are not just to adorn the dining room table or the entry way, but are great and especially nice when placed in baths or bedrooms. A small vase of flowers in the guest room is an inexpensive yet personal and inviting touch to greet your guests. In fact fresh cut flowers are an inexpensive way to dress up your home everyday. A large bouquet or two of flowers from the super market can be divided into several vases and placed in different rooms and add a touch of beauty for a small investment.

Food

Food, it such a integrated part of everyday life that often times we fail to see it as more than a necessity to be fulfilled with the least amount of thought or bother possible. This is such a sad loss of opportunity for enriching everyday life and nourishing your family's spirit, soul and body. We have to eat, so why not make it a special time that all can enjoy. Making a nice meal is a blessing not only to those who partake of the meal, but I believe a special blessing to the one's who prepare the meal. So set the table, in which you literally prepare a place for each person and come to sit together and dine. Dining is an event, the results of which are much more far reaching than just food being ingested. For one thing sitting in an inviting setting and eating, sharing and conversing with loved ones actually affects the way your food is digested in comparison to grabbing something and eating on the run. People were meant to dine, to take time to sit and eat together and reap the benefits of this daily event. Preparing a nice family meal can easily be a family affair that all will enjoy and look forward to. Adding special touches as you go along is something everyone will further enjoy as I discuss next in "Little Extras".

Little Extras

Things that come under this category are things like lighting candles for an everyday meal. Use the crystal wine glasses for the orange juice for a weekend breakfast or brunch. Add cloth napkins to the place setting or anything else that adds a festive flair. Or use the champagne flutes and make a mimosa to serve with a weekend breakfast or brunch. Serve a fancy dinner for no reason except that you and your family deserve it. Or make a pizza party, with individual pizza crusts and a wide assortment of toppings in a divided tray or several small dishes and let everyone make there own pizza. The ingredients can be basic or gourmet. I was at my daughters' home this fall and she did this offering everything from artichoke hearts to zucchini for topping our own pizza. It was fun and it made something as simple as pizza an event. Yet it was inexpensive and took only a few minutes to pull together.

I mentioned seasonal fruit before and it deserves another mention here. A dish of fruit can be an easy center piece, a splash of added color to kitchen counter or bar area and when added to meals bring fresh seasonal flavors. Pick a single fruit with rich color like limes, clementines, avocados, apples or tomatoes and fill a bowl or other pretty dish for a simple but striking display. Mix two fruits with striking colors for an artful presentation. It's fun allowing a little creativity to everyday life. Everyone in your home will enjoy and reap the benefits of your creativity, including you in a greater sense of connection to yourself, your home and your family. Of course a wonderful cornucopia of different colorful fruit is a standard kitchen complement that we should all have everyday.

I also like setting out dishes filled with nuts and candies in my living room and dining room for snacking offerings. I do some holiday candies such as holiday peanut M&M's for Christmas and maybe Valentine's and maybe one dish of corn candy in the fall. Mostly, I make things like roasted nuts glazed with a little brown sugar and spices, a mixture of dried fruits and nuts to offer as healthy snacks to all that enter my home. I always have Dove dark chocolate's in the living room and different types of nuts. These are healthful snacks that add a sense of bounty to your home. I think we all enjoy walking into a room and finding a little treat. Note: If you have candies in your home all the time they become the norm and your family will not over indulge, but will enjoy in moderation.

Concluding Thoughts

All these tips are really just ideas for ways of making everyday life richer by finding ways of giving of yourself to your family in fun ways. You know your family best and can be creative in expanding these ideas to fit your own family.

Taking the time to brighten everyday routine is time well spent. It's a treat we give ourselves when we take time to celebrate each day by doing the little things that make any day a special occasion.