Kid Friendly Crafts - Recipe For Homemade Incense

Looking for a different activity for the kids? How about a recipe for homemade incense? This easy, fun filled craft idea is a great way to not only spend some quality time with the kids, but to make your home smell great, too.

All of the ingredients for this recipe for homemade incense can be found either around your home, or in your local craft store for a relatively inexpensive price. Some of the ingredients can also be found in a natural food store. The tools you will need are just a mortar and pestle, which can also be found in any craft, hobby, or natural food store.

Making Your Homemade Incense

Before you start, you need to make sure that you have all the ingredients necessary for your recipe for homemade incense. This include powdered scents such as sandalwood, jasmine, or frankincense, or any other flowers, herbs, or spices that strike your fancy; a box of raisins; a few charcoal briquettes; a mortar and pestle (a manual coffee grinder will work just as well); a mixing bowl; and a storage container.

Also be sure that you have some sort of fire-safe dish to burn your incense in when you're finished. This is important, as this recipe for homemade incense is for what is known as a loose, non-combustible incense, and will require a lit charcoal briquette to burn.

Kids love this recipe for homemade incense, especially the part that includes the mortar and pestle. Place whatever dried herbs, spices, flowers, or woods you have chosen for your incense into the mortar, and show your children how to grind them to a fine powder using the pestle.

Once your dried ingredients have been ground, place them in the mixing bowl and bring out the box of raisins. Freezing the raisins slightly beforehand will make them much easier to grind. Grind the raisins until they create a fine 'gravelly' looking mixture, then add in your dried ingredients and grind together to blend the scents.

Once you have mixed together all of the ingredients for your recipe for homemade incense, allow to dry thoroughly. In a fire safe bowl, place about an inch of sand (sand, not kitty litter) and place a charcoal briquette in the center. Light the charcoal and allow the flame to burn out. Once this is lit, sprinkle your incense mixture on top of the charcoal and allow to burn, adding more as needed.

My personal favorite recipe for homemade incense is as follows. One part dried rose petals, one part dried lavender, and one part sandalwood. I don't use raisins, because the sandalwood is enough to bind the ingredients together. I hope that you and your children enjoy this recipe for homemade incense as much as I do!