These homemade pinecone and sawdust firestarters make the house smell wonderful! And potpourri spice mix and hot pads with aroma make great gifts!
Homemade Pinecone and Sawdust Firestarters
Thanks Lois! Tawra
Fun Gifts To Make ~ Easy On The Budget ~ Great To Receive!
By Lois Breneman, Heart to Heart Newsletter, jhbreneman@juno.com
Hot Pads With Aroma
Cut two seven inch by seven inch squares of material. Put the squares together with the right sides together.
Sew around all four edges of the square. Leave a two inch space open.
Turn the square right side out. Fill the square with two cups of rice, two ounces of whole cloves and two cinnamon sticks. You could also just scent the rice with cinnamon oil.
Fold the raw edges in and pin together. Stitch the opening closed with a sewing machine. When setting a hot dish on the pad, it will give off a pleasant aroma. I used cotton fabric, with a double layer of white fleece as extra padding, then sewed around, leaving a 3-4″ opening, turned right side out, poured rice between the two layers of fleece, added some potpourri oil and sewed the opening shut.
Potpourri Spice Mix
(A loving little gift to include with cards or to give neighbors)
Contents of package:
1/2 – 1 tsp. or more of each spice of cloves, ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon.
Directions: Simmer contents in a potpourri pot or in a small saucepan on the stove, along with about a cup of water. Continue adding water as it evaporates.
(Note: Spices bought in bulk at a natural foods coop cost as little as a tenth the amount as in a grocery store!)
Pinecone Fire Starters
Melt paraffin or old candles in a coffee can placed in a pan of hot water on the stove. If color is needed, add old crayons. Add a few drops of scented oil to the wax – cinnamon, cloves, orange. Dip each pine cone into the melted wax. You can do that by tying a candlewick or heavy crochet thread to the top of each pine cone to make it easier to dip into the melted wax. Allow the wax to harden, while holding or resting it on wax paper between dips. For gift-giving, arrange pine cones in a basket with a note of instructions: Add 2-3 pine cone fire starters to kindling wood when starting a fire in the fireplace. Light the wicks.
Another version of this gift is to dip pine cones into melted wax several times, without the wicks, using tongs. My one adult son and I gathered pine cones and made these one year over Thanksgiving vacation. He used the nicer ones on his Christmas tree branches and they looked really good!
Sawdust Fire Starters
Fill muffin tins with cupcake liners. Fill each with sawdust. If your husband doesn’t do woodwork, anyone who does would be thrilled to give you as much sawdust as you want. Melt old candles in a double boiler or in a candle warmer. A small amount of candle fragrance would give off a nice aroma. Carefully pour melted wax into each cupcake liner, by pouring into a measuring cup first.
Allow to dry thoroughly and remove from muffin tins. Package into cellophane bags to give as gifts, with instructions attached – “Fire Starters – Toss one or two fire starters into fireplace with logs to help ignite a good fire.” Add the name of the fragrance used – “Cinnamon Fire Starters.”
Quick and Easy Fire Starters
Save your toilet roll cores and stuff them with lint from the dryer.
[dining]
Another firestarter: I save up the cardboard egg cartons and lint from my dryer. As I accumulate the lint I press it into each egg cup of the carton, having removed the “lid” of the egg carton. When I have about 4 cartons full of lint, I put the egg secton on the “lid”, melt old candles and pour melted wax onto the lint until the lint and cardboard egg cup are saturated. Once it hardens, I cut them into 12 fire starters.
My firestarter is very cheap, save the empty toliet paper rolls stuff with shredded paper drizzle melted candle wax over the tops. I stand them up in a 24 pop container box then just pour my melted wax over, put two in wood stove and start your fire.
I have found the easiest way to start a fire, it has no scent, but every woman who does laundry has it. Your lint from your drier. I use it anytime I am starting a fire either in my fireplace or outside. It works great. I know it’s not as pretty or smells as great as the pinecones and you wouldn’t want to give it has a gift, but if you don’t have anything else, it works.
Hi Carol what a great idea can you plz give a little more detail ex: do you just throw it in and then add wood? Or maybe use a toilet paper roll and stuff it with the lent? Just wondering how to try it. thank you again for a great idea
I was wondering why you put oil in the simmering potpourri? I freeze orange and lemon peels (that haven’t been used up for zest) and simmer with cinnamon sticks, cloves, and water. I’ve never thought of adding oil and am curious how it might benefit my simmering mixture.
Rachel I am so glad you pointed that out. It was a mistake we over looked. It doesn’t need the oil in there just water needs to be added. I have fixed it thank you.
I love the potpourri idea’s listed in this article. I am a huge pumpkin fan. My favorite stovetop recipe for pumpkin is to combine apple cider, canned pumpkin, cinnamon sticks, vanilla, clove and nutmeg in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Once the water starts to evaporate you can continue to replace it with apple cider, or you can substitute with water.
the dryer fluff from new towels works really well in the above recipes