Fire starters - wax and pine cones with cotton wicks

I had an evening last week with a bit of time on my hands so I dug out the wax I melted a while ago and the pine cones I collected before it snowed and made up a few fire starters.  We have been enjoying Girl Guide cookies - chocolate mint!!  They have been repackaged this year and come in these nice clear trays which I have been saving knowing they would come in handy for something!!  They work perfectly for these fire starters!!  I put a cupcake liner on the top of the opening in preparation for the pinecones to be ready to put inside.  I melted the wax in a double boiler and then turned down the heat.  The wax was not cooling very quickly so I removed the top of the double boiler and placed it on a cast iron frying pan which worked really well for lowering the temperature.  The lower temperature of wax makes coating the pine cone thickly very easy.  Once it temperature was right I got started.  I managed to get about 5-6 done and then had to put the double boiler back into the hot water bath to bring the temperature up a bit to get it a bit more liquid again.  It was an ongoing process - in the bath, out of the bath but it worked well.  I had added cotton cording to the pinecones by slipping it under the bottom arms and wrapping it around til it was at the top.  I tied a single knot there encasing the few arms at the top.  Not sure it was necessary to have it wrapped around the bottom part.  I think you could just tie it to the top few arms tight enough to secure the cord to the pinecone so you can dip it without burning your fingers.  It worked really well to have the cord to dip them.  With the wax at the right temperature it coats the pinecone thickly in a couple of dips.  Once my pinecone was well coated I placed in on the cupcake liner I had placed over the opening in the tray and simply pushed it down into the cavity.  Once the wax solidifies you can lift them out very nicely.  So if you choose to package these a different way for giving you would really only need a couple of GG cookie trays to make a production line.  I started with yellow wax and then added teal to the yellow which made green.  I managed to get 4 packages ( 6 each) of yellow ones and 2 green ones.  I did find a few pinecones that were too big for the cavity so it would be good to test your pinecones before you start to make sure they are the right size.   

After they were all done I found some heavyweight paper in my stash that was long enough to make some wrappers for the trays.  I just measured, scored, folded and then glued the flaps to each other.  Worked really well.  I will add some information and instructions to them before gifting them away!! The fire starters can be used up and the sleeve can also be burned.  The plastic tray is recyclable so it can be put in the bin for pick up.  No garbage to dispose of!!!     Therese

Sewing - a zippered bag with fun bright colours

There has been mention of bags for women in need in our larger community and I decided to see if I could make one that I was happy with.  For this one, I reused a bag that was already while.  I did take it apart to add the decoration and the zipper piece.  I reused the handles (30") they way they were and boxed the bottom for it to be shorter and more functional.  It measures 4" across the bottom, 15.5" tall and 12.5" wide.  I made french seams inside so it is finished neatly inside.  I added tabs to the end of the zipper to make it easier to open and close.  I added three strips of the fun turquoise fabric just to decorate the front a bit.  I stitched them on using a decorative stitch on my machine which also will help to keep the raveling to a minimum.  I have a desire to create panels using my scraps and quilting techniques which I can then use to make bags.  I will need them to be between 32" and 34" and I would make them wider - 16" to 18" wide so they finish up a little larger than this one.   Therese