How ‘Bout A Quickie?

Post. A quickie post, people. 🙂 I was really hoping to have my first remodel post up and ready for this morning, but I’ve had six little kiddos needing some extra momma time this week so we’ll shoot for tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s a quickie idea for all of you still stuck with heavy snow and winter temperatures from Thriver Sue L from Washington. She sent me her method for free, yummy-smelling fire starters made from items on hand. Want to make your own? For this project you’ll need: Fill your cardboard egg carton with dryer lint, packing it down to really fill each section. Fill a  clean plastic container (cottage cheese, margarine, sour cream, etc.)  with wax from old candles or Scentsy bricks (or faux Scentsy bricks like I have). (I ended up adding wax from an old candle to my used wax bricks to fill the container mostly full). Fill a regular sauce pan with a couple inches of water and add your container with the wax pieces.  Bring to a boil on high heat and “cook” … … until wax is all melted.  My mostly full container of wax took about 5 minutes to melt down completely and yielded about about a half container of melted wax. Even though I know plastic has a higher melting point than boiling water, I was still worried that my container would fall apart.  Turns out I worried about nothing. The container held up like a champ and not a drop of wax ended up on my good pans. Carefully remove container with melted wax with tongs and let it cool for a minute or two.  (This amount was perfect for filling a single dozen egg carton.) Pour melted wax over the lint, letting it soak down into each section of the carton.  And I have to warn you … it’s going to look nasty. As soon as the wax gets poured over the lint, it’s going to look like a giant hairball.  See? I know … ew. But just think about how well hair burns. (All of you who used Aqua Net too close to a lighter in the 80’s know what I’m talking about). So, suppress the gag reflex and carry on. Let your melted hairball fire starters dry for an hour or two until firm, then cut or rip apart and use for your next fire.  Not pretty, but they’re fire-starting ROCK STARS!  Seriously. Rock stars. If you wanted to make these up for someone else and were worried about how they looked, you could just wrap each section in newsprint and tie with twine. And these smell soooo good, even with mixed scents. My batch was a bizarre mix of Peppermint Breeze, Cedar/Balsam Forest and Mandarin Mango Madness that—amazingly–I’m kind of diggin’ it right now. So there you go … an awesome quickie way to stay warm this winter for nothing out-of-pocket. Thanks, Sue! And if you have a great "quickie” idea that can be made using only items your have on hand, email me and I’d love to feature you! Hope everyone’s staying warm out there ….