One unique idea of bringing Mother Nature into your home by way of a drink coaster is by picking some flowers in your garden and drying them to use for your project. It won’t cost you any money and you can have a wide variety of coasters to use for different occasions. They will also make the perfect gift to give to your family and friends. Since flowers can take as long as three weeks to dry, you can pick a selection of them and then choose the ones you want to use for making the coasters.

You will need to have a thick book in which you press the flowers you are going to use for each drink coaster. Use tissue paper for spreading the flowers on, but don’t let the flowers touch each other. Cover the flowers with more tissue, newspaper and cardboard that you have cut in the same size as that of the book you intend to use. Lay the book on top of the flowers and let sit for two or three weeks. If you don’t grow your own flowers you can bypass this step in by purchasing dried flowers at a craft store or by purchasing flowers from a garden center that you can dry.

Once the flowers are dry, you are ready to proceed to the next step of making your own beverage coasters. You do need to purchase panes of glass that measure 4 inches by 4 inches because this is the standard size of a drink coaster. You will also need to have clear glue and heavy aluminum foil tape. Use regular glass cleaner to clean the panes of glass and the edges. Arrange the flowers in whatever way you wish and lay them on one pane of glass and cover the flowers with another. Apply the glue to all four edges of the coaster.

Take strips of the aluminum foil tape and carefully apply this along the glued edges. Make sure you cover the four edges of the drink coaster and cut off any extra edges to give you a smooth finish. When the glue dries, you can remove the tape to have glorious dried flower coasters. The glass will not harm your furniture unless you drop it, in which case it will shatter. You can leave the coaster as it is so that either side can be placed under a glass or you can apply a cork or rubber backing to one of the sides as a way of protecting the surface of the table. In any case, you will have coasters that guests will admire and ask you where you managed to find such masterpieces. No doubt you will have plenty of orders to fill.

Dried lavender and the scent of lavender have long been associated with linen cupboards and laundry. This is because lavender contains a natural insect repellent which helps to keep moths and other unwanted lodgers at bay, such as ants and silverfish (and probably cockroaches, at least to some extent). Lavender smells much nicer on clothes than mothballs by a long chalk. It may also be used in the vacuum cleaner to prevent the bad smell of dust when doing the domestic cleaning.

Most people associate dried lavender flowers in the home with dried flower arrangements and potpourri. If you want it for the scent rather than for the looks, the old-fashioned pot-pourri bowl is best. Stirring the dried flowerheads of the lavender releases the scent. If the lavender gets a bit old and tired and loses its scent, replace it with fresh lavender or else add a few drops of lavender essential oil to recharge the scent.

Lavender bags are another traditional way of keeping your linens (and all your other clothes) smelling fresh and for keeping insects away. This allows the scent of lavender to get into the clothing in your drawer, but the dried flower heads don’t break off, leaving you with itchy dried bits in your knickers. You can buy ready-made lavender bags at gift shops and the like.

Bunches of dried lavender kept in one piece by bits of string or ribbon are best kept for sheets and pillowcases, as these get shaken out before use and so the problem of little bits getting stuck and itching you is less of a problem. Tuck these bunches of lavender into piles of sheets at regular intervals and move the periodically as the sheets get used. Make sure the lavender is dried before you put it into the sheets – dry stuff might go off or get odd smears on your best white Egyptian cottons.

Lavender bottles are a fancier variation on the bunches that have slightly less likelihood of shedding bits. To make a lavender bottle, get a bunch of fresh lavender and tie them tightly together just below the flower head. Then bend the stalks down so they enclose the flowers in a sort of cage. Tie the stems down below the flower head just below where you tied them at first, and then tie them together again at the ends. It looks a bit like a very long-necked bottle; hence the name.

Lavender bunches and bottles can also be kept in kitchen cupboards to deter ants and the like. It’s best to store them in dried goods that won’t get too badly affected by the scent/taste of lavender. A good suggestion that doesn’t leave you with lavender-flavoured salt or beans is to put the bunches on the shelf or in the cupboard between the boxes, containers and bags of dry goods, which should put the ants and silverfish off before they find their way into your flour.