Craft Alert! DIY Gel Air Freshener

So my house is being invaded by flying critters. Of the blood sucking type. Yup, mosquitos. And it drives me absolutely crazy!! I get really bad reactions to the bites and they seem to know that. I actually got ambushed in the laundry room by like 5 or 6 of them at once! I couldn't find an indoor solution to getting rid of these darn pest. I was so close to burning citronella candles inside the house, but the hubs denied that. I didn't want to leave them burning outside because (1) I'll have to go outside, in their natural habitat (2) I would totally forget about them and (3) my dog would probably try and eat the candle or knock it over.

Doesn't he have the face of destruction?

Anyhoo. I started searching on Pinterest (because why use Google when you can scroll though pictures?) and found this really cool DIY Gel Air Freshener Project. It wasn't stupidly complicated or required me to buy millions of ingredients.  So I carried forth, inspired by the Make Your Own Gel Air Fresheners tutorial by One Good Thing by Jillee. I didn't have any pretty things to add to it, but I did have an abundance of food coloring. Which I never use.

Materials:
* Mason Jars (I got the 1/2 pint flat ones)
* Water (2 1/2 cups, divided into 1 cup and 1 1/2 cup)
* Salt (1 tsp.)
* Telephone Agar Gelatin Mix (1 tsp.)
* Citronella Essential Oil (10 drops)
* Lemon Essential Oil (5 drops)
* Eucalyptus Essential Oil (5 drops)
* Food Coloring (3 drops)
* Hammer
* Nail

Steps:
1. Mix the 1 1/2 cup water with the essential oils and food coloring, set aside
2. Dissolve the Agar Powder and salt in 1 cup of water in a saucepan
3. Let it sit for 5 mins. Yup, let the saucepan sit on the cold stove. Come back and stir once in a while, you'll notice that the stuff that didn't really dissolve will settle to the bottom
4. Heat to a boil, let it sit at a rolling boil for about 45-60 seconds
5. Take off heat
6. Add in water mix and stir
7. Pour evenly into mason jars
8. Let sit til firm
9. Poke holes onto lid with hammer and nail

Because of my darn OCD, I punched holes where there were decorative dots on the lid

Evenly spaced holes!

The finished product!

So for about 7 minutes of work and about 2 hours of chilling in the fridge, the air fresheners are done! And the best part: it was really cheap to make!! I got the mason jars on sale at target for $4.00 and the essential oils during a Sprouts sale way back when. Gotta love those sales! I set it out by our back door, because I'm pretty sure that these pest love to fly in whenever we let Scout in/out for potty time. Yes, our dog knows going to the bathroom as potty lol. No shame!