As inefficient as it probably is, we love our wood-burning fireplace. That thing is running from about Halloween through April. There’s just something comforting about being able to be self-reliant if the world goes to hell. What could be more back to the basics than being able to drag fallen limbs near to the house and slice them up to keep warm? In past years, Jay would snap applewood branches, rip up cardboard, prop a bunch of stuff under the wood, fan the flames, say a prayer and hope for the best. A few months ago, I was complaining that I didn’t know what to get Jay for Christmas and my hairdresser, of all people, told me about the fire starters she makes. Fire starters? Good news for her is that she owns an eyebrow waxer, but I don’t. However, I was good to run with her concept.
Ingredients for this recipe are dryer lint (you’d be surprised how much you make once you start collecting it), paraffin, and something to hold them.
I bought paraffin wax, and dedicated one of my smaller crockpots to this process.
I collected a bunch of paper egg cartons, and when the paraffin was melting, I plopped a little bit of dryer, lint, and some snips of Applewood and Christmas tree on top of each spot in the egg carton. Once the paraffin was melted, I took a ladle too ugly to be used in the kitchen and scooped out the melted wax and poured it over the dryer, lint, applewood, and Christmas tree parts. As you can see in my photos, I rocked this Christmas gift for my husband–until he opened it and gave me a WTF look. It made a beautiful Christmas gift, but the next time I removed the Christmas tree parts and the Applewood. Although Jay wasn’t as happy as I was about the fire starters at first, he was amazed at how quickly they got the fire started. And a complete turn of events, last Saturday night, we stayed home and made more, because we were out.
Note: I bought pure paraffin because I wasn’t sure if old candle parts melted in would be dangerous or somehow damaging to the brick of the fireplace, but I’ll have to research that for next time.
