I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come home from a long weekend trip, only to open the door and smell something rotten coming from my kitchen. I make it a point to clean my kitchen before leaving on long trips now, but sometimes there is just one thing I forget to do: run the garbage disposal. That smell really is the worst.

My mom has recently gotten hooked on Pinterest and started getting crafty. Instead of just following the directions on the pins, she will make it her own and make it better and easier (something I clearly learned from her). Her most recent discovery was how to make your own garbage disposal refreshers.

When I walked in the door before Thanksgiving, this is what I was greeted with: my mom using the kitchen island to create these:

Don’t they look like some kind of delicious sugar cookie? Unfortunately they are far from an edible dessert. What are they exactly? They are garbage disposal refreshers.

Pretty much all that is in them is in this picture:

They are a mixture of lemons, baking soda, salt and a little bit of soap that when mixed together properly, create the perfect little garbage disposal refreshers. Just toss one in your disposal, let it sit for a few minutes, turn on the hot water and run your garbage disposal and the little refresher goes to work, emitting a nice, lemony, clean smell.

Her recipe is as follows:

Most people just put this concoction into a sealed glass container and scoop out a bit into their garbage disposal when it starts getting a little stinky. My mom found these great little ice cube containers that mold the refreshers into the perfect, one-size serving:

You can use any mold or ice cube tray, but you don’t want them too big, either depth wise or length wise as it will take a lot of time to dry and you don’t need such a big serving for the disposal.

A few tips we learned:

• After mixing the ingredients together with your hands, let it sit for a few minutes before mixing again and putting them in the molds.
• If the mixture is too wet, add some more of the dry ingredients as they will stick to the mold and come out looking deformed.
• You want the mixture to feel like slightly damp sand.
• Leaving the mixture in the mold for long periods of time (like overnight) doesn’t make the refreshers come out any less deformed than after waiting 10 minutes.
• Pack the mixture in the forms as much as you can before letting it sit.
• Don’t rinse out the trays in between batches. Just hit them on the sink until all the stray bits are gone. If you must rinse it out, let dry COMPLETELY before making a new batch.
• If they all come out deformed, just scoop up the refershers into the bowl and start over.

Her and I spent the rest of the weekend perfecting the recipe and creating as many as we could – they will make great gifts come Christmas! Plus, as a bonus, we discovered that this was the perfect scrub for our hands!

What’s the best housewarming gift you’ve received?