5 Decorative Ways to Scent Your Home with Cedar

Instead of a terracotta or ceramic pot, seek out a small cedar planter box to use in your foyer, sunroom or breezeway. You’ll not only have a lovely plant in your home, but the box will create a warm look -- and that woodsy smell! Try a home improvement or garden store, or look online for a cedar planter box.

Enjoy the subtle fragrance of a cedar forest wafting through your home with a cedar decorative candle. If you want to create a custom look, buy small tea-light style cedar candles and place in the bottom of old mason jars. For a holiday decoration, use a brush to coat the inside of a jar with watered down Elmer’s glue and drop a palm full of glitter in the jar. Roll the jar until glitter coats the inside, let dry, and add your cedar tea-light.

Cedar scent diffusers – also called reed diffusers – can make any space feel elegant and cozy. Natural reeds -- usually bamboo -- absorb oil scent in a glass jar or dish and gently release it into the air. The oils can be found in different colors, and diffusers are more child-friendly than candles since they have no flame. Lasting about three months, a diffuser is a great way to make a room feel more sophisticated.

Elegant in look and lovely in scent, a cedar chest is a great way to incorporate cedar into your home. Moth and bug resistant, it combines form and function. At the foot of a bed, it can store spare blankets and heirloom quilts. In a living room, use it as a side table that stores out-of-season clothes like sweaters. Refresh the scent occasionally by rubbing fine textured sandpaper gently along the grain of the wood – on the inside of the chest -- and vacuum the dust before storing clothing.

If you’ve extended your space to an outdoor living room or patio, scent the area with cedar oil torches. These can be found in most home stores and often incorporate citronella to ward off bugs. The flickering flames and comforting scents will create a cozy atmosphere for all your outdoor parties.