by Texas Homesteader ~
It’s easy to make Pinecone and Egg Carton Fire Starters. Functional and cheap but pretty enough for gifting!
Homemade Fire Starters Making Starting A Fire Easy
It’s no secret that RancherMan loves my homemade fire starters. He’s made me promise I’ll never let him run out of them! They can be used during camping trips, for starting a wood fire in the fireplace or even for gifting.
There are a couple of ways I make them: (click the link for detailed instructions)
Cardboard Egg Carton Fire Starters – Using a cardboard egg carton I tuck either all-natural cotton fiber from the dryer’s lint trap or tiny scraps of cotton material from worn denim jeans into each cup. (or sometimes just the scraps from the same cardboard egg carton I’m working with.) Then I’ll melt and pour wax over the contents of each cup, allow the wax to cool and separate the cups for individual fire starters.
Wax-Dipped Pinecone Fire Starters – This is a prettier fire starter, suitable for gifting. I take large pretty pinecones and roll them in colorful melted wax. Then I bundle them up into a pretty basket and BOOM! It makes an inexpensive, pretty and functional gift.
But I sometimes combine the two methods. Cardboard egg cartons and smaller pinecones. #UseWhatchaGot, y’all!
Where I Get Cardboard Egg Cartons
I hate Styrofoam. So I have friends & family save their cardboard egg cartons for me. I’m able to use them to store our free-range hen’s eggs.
But when I get more than I can use for their intended purpose I start making homemade fire starters, whether for our own use or for gifting. It’s so easy.
Pinecones Are Flammable
Pinecones are a nicely flammable ingredient for these fire starters. We don’t have pine trees here but several of our family members have them. So I ask others to share their pinecones with me from time to time.
For these egg carton/pinecone fire starters I use the smaller-sized pinecones so they’ll fit inside the egg carton cups.
Making Egg Carton & Pinecone Fire Starters
Let’s make our egg carton & pinecone fire starters!
First I pull out a used cardboard egg carton and place it on a piece of newspaper to catch any melted-wax runoff. I’ll also set it all upon a metal rimmed cookie sheet just to make sure there are no melted-wax mishaps.
In the meantime I start melting the wax in my own double-boiler setup.
Then I tuck a small pinecone firmly into each cardboard egg carton cup. When the pinecones are in place and the wax is melted, I carefully and slowly pour the wax on top of each pinecone, making sure to drizzle the wax around the entire surface of the pinecone. Some of the wax will pool inside the egg cups.
Then I let the wax cool and harden. When it’s completely cool I pull apart each egg cup / pinecone and BOOM! Fire starters!
These are also pretty enough for gifts and I’ve gifted them a couple of times to my father. It’s the only gift he’s specifically requested again! He has a cast-iron wood-burning stove too and he’s completely enamored with how easily these fire starters make starting his fire on those chilly mornings.
So if you have pinecones at your disposal, give these homemade pinecone & egg carton fire starters a try. They’re pretty and functional too!
~TxH~
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These are great! As you know we save old candles to use too. I add a little bit of Gulf Wax to mine just to make sure the flame level is adequate. This is especially good if you have some candles that got left in the attic and are no longer straight. We use the egg carton ones to start our fire pit fires. I make a big batch once a year and then they are there for use all winter long. Great post!!