Monday, April 18, 2011

Starts…and campfires…

It is the start of “campfire season” at our house! Yippeeeee, we love a campfire. It usually falls to me to get the fire started, so I decided to make some fire-starters to make the job easy and smooth…and cause I wanted to use up some old candles…reduce my hoard stash a little!

firestarter2

First I put water in an old kettle and a tin can in the water with the old candle. (Basically a double-boiler)

firestarter

Then I cut up the cardboard tubes from paper towels and gift wrap into sections, covered the bottom with recycled wax paper, used a rubber band to hold it together, added some cotton string for a wick, stuffed them full of dryer lint, and then poured the melted wax into them. The rubber bands snapped when the hot wax reached them but all was well. They burn beautifully!!!! My hubbie, the volunteer fire fighter, is always telling me how dangerous dryer lint is for starting a fire. I believe him! Oh, it’s helpful to dip the string into the wax to “harden” it a bit before you put it into the tube.

Now for the starts…

starts

I do not understand why I do this to myself every year… it is a true compulsion! Every year I start seeds and I have never actually planted anything I’ve started. It always ends up in the compost because I failed in some way. Sigh. Well, here we go again. This year I decided to try using an old fish tank for a mini greenhouse. Ya, it’s not pretty. We’ll make it pretty if it actually works. I planted seeds on the 15th and today I have my first tiny little sprout! I will keep you updated. This is my idea, I haven’t seen it anywhere else, so if you do try this out please let me know how it works!

starts2

Don’t ya just love these phone-photography-apps!

Happy Crafting!!!

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