Class Idea: Scented Wood Slice Ornaments

Would you like to hold a fun and easy make-and-take essential oil class? Though we call these ornaments, you could use this same idea and make wood slices to decorate any time of the year! You can even use larger wood slices and make drink coasters (if you use them with hot drinks, the oils will diffuse even better!). We also think these make fun gift tags, decorative labels, car diffusers, etc. The ideas are endless!

Here’s what you need for the class:

• A short lesson on whatever essential oil–related topic you desire. You can find many good ideas and information in the Reference Guide for Essential Oils.
• Wood slices. These can be ordered pre-cut (and even pre-drilled) online, purchased at a craft store, or made from a good tree branch. If you do make your own, you may want to sand them a little too.
• A drill. This is for adding a hole that you can use to string up your ornament. If you are doing a different kind of decoration, you may not need a drill.
• Decoration supplies. We chose to use a wood-burning tool to decorate our wood slices. You can also do a similar idea with string art using a hammer, small nails, and string/thread. If you are going to hang your wood as ornaments, you will also need ribbon or string.
• Essential oils. You may want to have little sample bottles available along with a few holiday-scented blend recipes and allow your guests to choose what oils to add to their sample bottle to take home with their ornament.

When doing this as a class, you may want to set up the make-and-take portion as a line of stations that your guests can go through. Here is how you could set it up:

• The first station could be a drilling station where someone is available with a drill to help your guests drill their wood slices. You can also have the wood slices pre-drilled, but doing the drilling at the class could allow your guests to choose whether they want to make an ornament or some other decoration.
• The second station could be a drawing station with pencils, scratch paper, and a few simple ideas (to help people get started).
• The third station could be a wood-burning station with a couple of wood-burning tools set up and plugged in.
  
• The fourth station could be the ribbon station with a variety of thin ribbons, a ruler, and scissors for your guests to cut a strip about 5–6 inches (13–15 cm) long.
• The fifth station could be the essential oil station where you could include a small selection of essential oils with a few holiday-scented blend ideas and small sample bottles for the guests to put their chosen essential oil or blend in. You may also want to include some dispensing tools (such as these 1 ml syringes and Adapta-caps™) to help with the transfer of essential oils to the sample bottles. You can even use these blank labels to make labels for the sample bottles.

Wood Slice Ornaments

• Time: 5–15 minutes active
• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients:

• Wood slices (cut and sanded, if needed)
• Power drill
• Pencils
• Wood-burning tool
• Ribbon
• Essential oil(s)

Instructions:

1. Drill a hole (at least 1/4″ or 1/2 cm from the edge) in each wood slice. If you are doing this with a class, you may want to pre-drill all the wood slices. (If you are making a decoration other than ornaments, you can skip this step.)
2. Draw an image (such as a snowflake) on the wood slice with a pencil.
3. Use the wood-burning tool to trace your pencil drawing. Be very careful not to touch the tip of your wood-burning tool, as it is very hot.
4. Cut a ribbon strip about 5–6 inches (13–15 cm) long, place it through the hole in the wood slice, and tie the ends together.
5. Add a few drops of essential oil to the wood slice, and hang your ornament on your Christmas tree (or wherever else you want to decorate). Add more oil when needed.

Extra Ideas:

• Use these as gift tags, car diffusers, decorative labels, drink coasters, or any other decoration!
• You can convert this idea into a child’s craft project by doing string art rather than wood-burning art. To do string art, just hammer small nails into the wood slices, and wrap string (or thread) around the nails to form an image. Easy ideas include stars, Christmas trees, snowflakes, etc.
• You can also paint one side of a wood slice with chalkboard paint and decorate it with chalk. Use the other side as a diffuser by adding essential oil to the wood.

Class Idea: Experience Essential Oils in Your Class and Cinnamon Fruit Dip

When hosting or teaching an essential oil class, one of the best ways to teach your students is by allowing them to experience essential oils first hand. Below, we will give a few examples of ways you can allow your students the chance to experience essential oils topically, aromatically, and/or internally.

Topical Experience:

• Massage: Using essential oils with massage in your class is not only a great way to experience essential oils, but it can be quite relaxing and provide an enjoyable and memorable experience for the student. This can be as simple as massaging hands or as complex as teaching a specific essential oil massage technique.
• Direct Application for Specific Needs: As you teach, you may find that most people suffer from an injury or painful condition of some kind, whether it be a simple cut or some kind of muscle or joint pain. Allowing your student the opportunity to directly apply essential oils specific to their condition can help open their eyes to what essential oils can really do for them.

Aromatic Experience:

• Diffusion: Diffusing essential oils during a class can be a great way to share them. You can choose essential oils based on the season or even based on the mood you want experienced. Some oils are great at promoting a happy mood, some work well for maintaining alertness, and some enhance abilities to focus. If you are in need of a diffuser, there are many options available at Abundant Health.
• Direct Inhalation: The wonderful thing about essential oils is that they are all unique and have a variety of smells. Another great way to experience these many scents is to pass around essential oils for class members to smell. If you are afraid to pass around full bottles of your expensive essential oils, you can place drops on these Aroma Testing Strips, write the oil name on each strip, and pass the strips around.
• All-Day Aromatherapy: If you want your attendees to leave your class with a lingering scent of their favorite essential oil, encourage each student to find an oil they really like the smell of and apply a drop of it to their wrists and rub it on their neck as well.

Internal Experience:

• Cooking with Essential Oils: The absolute best way to experience the essential oils internally is to include them in your refreshments for the event! There are a variety of recipes that use essential oils, and you can find some of them on our blog: http://blog.abundanthealth4u.com/category/essential-ideas/cooking-recipes/. While many of these ideas make great refreshments, we have included another recipe here for a cinnamon-flavored fruit or cracker dip that is really easy to make and share with any number of people.

Cinnamon Fruit Dip

• Servings: Yield: 1 3/4 cups
• Time: 5 minutes
• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
• 1–2 drops cinnamon bark essential oil

Instructions:

Mix the honey and peanut butter together. Add the yogurt and cinnamon oil. Serve with sweet crackers or fruit such as apples, pears, and bananas.