Mother’s Day Gift- DIY Car Diffuser with Essential Oils

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This year my daycare group made car diffusers for their Mother’s Day gifts.  I’m a big essential oil fan and I love how the scent of certain oils can clean the air, lift your mood and even prevent car sickness! (Stay tuned this month for my blog post on ‘Preventing Car Sickness’).  I came across this idea on Pinterest from Carrots Are Orange.

We sewed our felt diffuser pouches together because I believe children three years and older are capable of simple sewing. Gluing would be an excellent method to use if you have younger children in your daycare group.

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You will need some felt sheets, embroidery thread, large needles, essential oils and essential oil diffuser pads.  I used organic cotton makeup remover pads instead and the scent lasted for about a week before it dissipated. We gathered some wooden beads to decorate the car diffuser string.

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Whenever we make a craft that involves sewing, I work with the younger children one-on-one so I can closely supervise the use of the sharp needle.  Each child decided on a basic shape to cut out of felt. They cut out two identical shapes and sewed them together.

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Make sure your children are seated and focused on the movements of their needle when they sew.

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I hold the felt shape steady for them so they can pay attention to pulling the needle through the fabric. It is very easy for the children to get their thread tangled into a knot when they sew.  My job is to untangle the thread before it becomes a big problem.

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The kids delight in seeing their progress and they sew steadily around their shapes.

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Once they had sewn most of the shape together we paused for a moment to add the essential oil pad.

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Each child had a chance to smell the bottles of essential oil in my collection and they chose the scent they liked the most.  Lemon, Tea Tree and Eucalyptus are all wonderful for cleaning the air.  Lavender, Bergamot and Orange are lovely to produce a calming effect.  Peppermint is our favourite for car sickness but I hear Tangerine and Ginger also work well.

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The kids put several drops of essential oil on the cotton pad and slipped the pad into their felt pouches.

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They sewed up the last section of their pouches and threaded on some beads for decoration.

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Our felt car diffuser shapes are ready to wrap for Mother’s Day.  Happy Mother’s Day Everyone!