Fill your home with the scents you desire and become an at-home perfumer as you create your very own eco-friendly home fragrance, with a unique blend of natural oils.

Using renowned Australian artist and designer Fleur Harris’s simple and ingenious DIY invention, your home will be moth-free and smell divine with just a few key items you probably already have at home.  

STEP 1: Cut 100% cotton fabric into squares, roughly 20 x 20cm in size. One square will make one fabric bag, so cut as many squares as you need.

STEP 2: Pour enough white rice into a bowl to fill the number of fragrance bags you’d like to make. Each bag uses about 2-3 tablespoons of rice. I am rough with my measurements; they don’t need to be perfectly precise for this project.

STEP 3: Add a few drops at a time of each of your selected oils until you’ve created a fragrance that you love. Stir it through the rice as you go. Use just enough essential oil to lightly coat all the rice. Oils that moths hate include lavender, cedarwood, clove, thyme, rosemary, mint, and eucalyptus.

STEP 4: Stir to evenly coat all the rice. If there is any excess oil pooling at the bottom of the bowl, just add more rice and stir it through. Don’t use too much oil or it may seep through the fabric bags.

STEP 5: Face the unprinted side of fabric up. Spoon a few tablespoons of the fragranced rice into the centre of each piece of fabric. Leave at least 7cm of fabric around the sides so there’s enough excess fabric to draw up and tie together over the rice.

STEP 6: Draw each corner to the centre. Do this carefully so to not spill any rice out the sides.

STEP 7: Tie the bag reasonably tightly just above the rice. To tie them, you can cut the drawcord into sections, or use lengths of twine. 20cm is a good length to use for each bag. Don’t tie the knot impossibly tight; you may want to open the bag later to refresh the fragrance.

STEP 8: Voila! Place your little fragrance bags anywhere you’d like to deter moths. In the pantry, wardrobes, or linen closets. Don’t sit the bags directly on fabric in case any oil seeps through the bag. When the scent diminishes, refresh by untying the bag, adding new oil, and tie it back up.

Canberra Daily had a chat with Fleur about her love of DIY projects, where her artistic inspiration comes from, and her latest environmental volunteer work.

“We moved into a new house, and I noticed some cheeky moths getting about – but I didn’t want to fill our home with synthetic fragrances or chemicals to get rid of them. I knew cedarwood was a natural moth repellent, so I began exploring what other fragrances moths didn’t like!” Fleur said.

“I discovered rice was a great carrier for the oils and very little fabric was needed to wrap it all up in a neat little bundle, which meant I also now had a great use for scraps of fabric I had left over from previous craft projects.”

When it comes to DIY projects, Fleur always has something in the works, and loves to keep trying until she’s figured out the perfect method.

“If I’m inspired with an idea or a project in mind, I usually like to get started straight away, and I have a knack for figuring things out. I don’t mind a bit of hard work, and trial and error is a great way to learn – plus the sense of achievement after a successful DIY project comes together is very satisfying,” she said.

“With this DIY, I like to explore with different blends, it’s part of the fun! Some of my go-to scents to experiment with are cedarwood, lavender, lemon, orange, rosemary, and mint.”

Fleur said she takes inspiration for her whimsical art from nature, especially flower and herbs traditionally featured in cottage gardens.

She feels we all have a responsibility to attempt to make the world a better place for sake of the future generations, and most recently has volunteered to design a Creative Project pack for the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

“I take that responsibility seriously, and it provokes me to be creative with how I can contribute using the skills I have. My love for animals and passion for nature and preserving our environment inspires much of my work, and there are infinite delights to be discovered in nature,” Fleur said.

“Our oceans are a critical pillar in the health of our planet, and the Great Barrier Reef is one of its greatest wonders that is suffering on our watch. I can’t help but feel compelled to try to do my part to help raise awareness of the challenges it faces, because they impact us all, and I hope I can help more people to learn about that and, in turn, want to help protect the Reef.”

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