This is my first batch of fire starters which I have decided is my 365 project for this year. It was the end result of trying to use up the paper that accumulates in my craft room and put it to good use. After several sessions of online research in regards to fire starters I have had two full days of experimenting on the structure and content of these fire starters as it only made sense to have a fire starter which actually starts a fire before I made 365 of them.
I have tried several options for the outside structure including bond paper and paper from paper bags and that which comes as filler in online orders. All the ones I tried worked well. For inside I have tried many variations including - crumpled newspaper, newspaper strips, small pieces of bond, shredded bond and many different ways of combining them. At the end of my first long day and many different combinations - even using bacon fat as an accelerant - I decided that an accelerant was necessary so I would try wax and maybe polyester fabric. My experiments with polyester fabric did not go well and I was unable to get it to burn with a flame strong enough to start a fire. It was worth a try.
Next, I decided to give wax a try which is one of the most used products in DIY fire starter tutorials. I don't have a lot of wax on hand except in the form of waxed crayons and I decided that this would be a good place to start. It would make the outside beautiful and encourage flames!! I trimmed papers to approximately 5.5" x 8.5" from bags from bananas bags and some brown paper from parcel filler. I put the bottoms of the bags through the shredder for the next step.
I set up my griddle and coloured the paper using my wax crayons. I have used wax crayons on several different substrates in the past. A while back I made backgrounds for cards using cardstock. You can check out instructions here. More recently, I made some Heart Art using bond paper which worked out really well. So with foil on the griddle I just started colouring my pieces of paper with my crayons and creating fun and interesting colour combinations. It was lots of fun!!
Next I folded the pieces in three the long way and stitched across the bottom to create a sort of tube for stuffing. I did them all at once on the sewing machine and cut them apart once I was finished.
Here is what I used to stuff the "tubes". I held the "tube" in my left hand and took a small sheet of newspaper (4" x 4" or so) and scrunched it and put it in the top of the tube then used the palette knife to get right to the bottom. I took a small handful (1/4 cup) of shredded paper and inserted that into the tube. I scrunched another piece of newspaper and inserted it over the shredded paper and push it down to about middle with my palette knife. Added another bit of shredded paper and then lastly another scrunched piece of newspaper. I pushed the newspaper just down enough so I could pinch the top edges together so I could stitch them together. I sewed them one at a time as I created them to ensure they did not lose their contents.
Here is a photo of one fire starter - front and back. As you can see the edges really don't need to be neat and there is enough overlap to keep the contents inside. No fancy stitching either - just regular thread!!
I managed to make 26 fire starters today so I am ahead a bit on my goal of making 365 - one for each day of the year!! I have tied them into bundles of six which I think would make wonderful gifts for friends who have a fire pit or go camping. I expect there is MUCH more outside social distancing visits in our future so these will come in very handy!! Needless to say that there were at least that many sacrificed in the name of research and the final test was to see if DH could light a fire with one. Success!!! He was very happy with how they worked. They are super easy to use - you simply light both ends and insert below your kindling - OR - place below your kindling and light both ends. In a few minutes you have a fire started and are on your way to a new adventure. We are very fortunate that we have plus temperatures here this week so my experiments have been conducted outside in the fire pit without freezing any part of myself.
So I have an outlet for scrap bond (shredding) and paper bags and such which I have been saving to make decorative paper for cardmaking. Instead, some will be decorative paper which will be channeled into fire starters. I have a plan to organize my craft room so that there is less storing and more using that happens in there. I hope that more creating will happen as a result! We shall see!!
Therese
