DIY Necklace Charm to use with Essential Oils

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    My granddaughter is a beautiful, friendly, outgoing, creative, loving almost 9 year old who loves to play with make-up and other girly things.  She really wanted to be with my husband and me this summer.  We went up to Wyoming and picked her up, along with one of her brothers, and brought them home with us for most of the summer.  Since they had a weird school year like everyone else, we felt like we could spend this quarantine time doing summer school with a private tutor, ME!  It has been a lot of fun!  They are bright students and I am so proud of them.  
     My granddaughter has such an active mind and one of the things we have had to work on is her ability to concentrate and stay on task.  When she does, she does beautiful work.  But when she is distracted, her comprehension suffers.  She isn't so bad that she needs medication, but I thought it might be nice to use some essential oils to help calm her mind that always seems to be going a mile a minute.  I came up with an idea that she could participate in and it is a project that speaks to the girly girl in her.  We made self drying clay charms that will absorb essential oil.  She can wear the charm as a necklace and the aroma of the oils can help her to calm her mind.  
      I am not an expert in oils, and I have done research into the ones that I do use.  I have shared the ones that I use with you in a past post. I tend to be very cautious of course, especially with my grandchildren.  That is one reason I decided to use the aromatic way of employing the oils in this case. 

What Oils Are Good For Calming and Concentration?

    I did my research to discover what oils might be helpful to help increase my granddaughter's concentration and focus.  My friend is a doTERRA representative, so I asked her for her advice. I also searched for information online.  The following list contains the oils that I have found to be recommended over and over again to help with calming, focus, concentration and memory: 

• Lavender (good for everything, right?  It is calming.)
• Lemon oil (better focus)
• Sweet Orange (citrus oils are uplifting, they clear your head and help you concentrate)
• Peppermint (cognitive awareness and alertness)
• Rosemary (has been known for centuries to help memory)
• Basil (sharpens focus)

     So, in my stash of oils I already owned Lavender, Lemon, Sweet Orange and Peppermint.  We started with those, but I'm pretty sure that I will be ordering the Rosemary and Basil as well. 

How We Made the Charms:

• First of all, we purchased this Crayola Air-Dry Clay. They also carry it at Walmart. 
• Flatten the clay or roll it out until it is about 1/4" thick.
• We used tiny cookie cutters that came in a Play Doh kit to cut out hearts and a butterfly.  You could also make free-form shapes or any cutters that you want.
• We used a sharpened pencil to poke 2 holes in the top of the charm for the string to go through. 
• Allow the charms to dry overnight.

Decorating the Charms:

     When my granddaughter and I made these, I let her do the rolling out and cutting of the shapes. I did the next part.
     It is important that when you decorate the charms that you leave one side plain so that you have a place to put the essential oils and the clay will be able to absorb them.  We chose to use embossing powder to make the outside of the charms glittery. I talked about using embossing powder and a heat gun on this post.  For these clay charms, I spread on a light coating of glue, sprinkled on the embossing powder and shook off the excess.  Then you heat the powder with the heat gun to melt it.  I suggest using a medium heat because if the clay gets too hot, it may crack.  (Trust me.)  
     After the powder is melted, don't touch the charm for awhile because it will be HOT! When they have cooled a bit, push the pencil through the holes again to make sure the embossing powder didn't clog them up. Measure the length of thread you need and put it through the holes.  We used an elastic cord for jewelry.  You could use jute, baker's twine or whatever you have.  Just be sure that it will fit over the child's head and tie a good knot to hold it together. 
     You could also use paint or glitter on your charms or even small beads or buttons or whatever you would like.  Just leave the back part plain.

Applying the Oil:

    Okay, this part was totally trial and error.  I turned the charm over to the bare side and put on drops of oil and let them soak in.  

• On the heart, I started with a drop of Sweet Orange, then a drop of Peppermint , which actually came out too fast and was more like 3 drops, and then a couple of drops of Lavender.  It smelled very pepper-minty, so I added a little more of the other two until it seemed like a balanced scent. 
• On the butterfly, I used a drop of Peppermint, more carefully, a couple drops of Lavender and about 3 or 4 drops of Lemon.  This one had our favorite scent. 

You could mix the oil in advance to get the scent that you want and then add it to the charm.  I may do that next time.  But, it is up to you. 
     Now for the test to see how she does during summer school, especially during silent reading and reading comprehension. 

My Observations:

     As we began to do our school work the first morning, I had my granddaughter inhale the aroma on her charm.  At first I didn't notice a big difference as she started to settle into her work.  I reminded her that if she felt distracted from her work, she should take a good sniff of the charm's aromatic oils.  She soon settled in and got to work.  I purposely gave her an assignment that was unfamiliar to her to see how she handled it.  I had to explain it to her twice, but then she completed it very insightfully.  I then put her on the computer to complete an online reading comprehension assignment.  She struggled at one point and I reminded her to take a breath of the scent and to go back and reread.  After that she completed the assignment with a 100% score, which isn't unusual when she stays focused.  We did reading fluency and she made zero errors.  Finally, I sent her off to do silent reading in a chapter book.  This is usually where she struggles and gets distracted and doesn't want to read.  But, this time she read and came to me to tell me about what she had read without me even asking her!  
     I am calling day 1 with essential oils a success.  I will update later as time progresses. 
 I will also let you know how often I need to reapply the oils to keep them fresh and effective. 

     I came up with this idea because I had seen air-dry clay Christmas ornaments that are scented with pine essential oils.  I decided that if they work for that, they should surly work for a little girl's necklace. 
     Let me know if you give this simple project a try.  Just having a necklace with the sweet orange alone will perk anyone's spirits!  I am coming up with a design for my grandson now.  He would rather have a dinosaur than a butterfly!