I have been doing a lot of paper shredding lately and was wondering what all I could do with it, rather than just toss it....We don't have a curbside pick-up for recycling. We have to take it to the town across the river.
So, of course I did a Google search and came up with DIY Firestarters. There are lots of different ways to make them. Here is how I made mine:
I started by placing the shredded newspaper into a plastic lid (I believe it went to a disposable lasagna pan). Then, I set it aside to work on melting the wax.
For the wax, I melted pieces I had leftover in the bottoms of old candles. Here you can see that I placed the wax into an old coffee can and put it into a big pot of water. I had to put the vise grips on top to hold the can down. You can also see the wooden skewer I used to stir the wax as it melted. Be careful when melting, I didn't go any higher than the simmer setting on my stove. It took about 15 minutes to melt. (I did two batches, and the 2nd took only about 10 minutes.)
Finally starting to melt!
When the wax had completely melted, I used a potholder and carefully poured the wax over the shredded newspaper. Make sure to saturate it well. As you can see, I also grabbed some dryer lint, which I rolled into a ball and then poured the wax over it.
Now, all you have to do is let it cool and harden. I figure I will just take it out of the plastic lid and use a large knife to cut it into chunks then store it for when we use our firepit out back. The candles were scented so the whole thing smells like berries. Thinking they should give off a nice aroma to the fire.
Have you ever made any firestarters? If so, what method did you use and how did they perform?
~April
