Saturday, June 4, 2011

Fun with recycling!


dryer lint
old candle wax
egg cartons
What could you possibly make 
with those three items that could be useful?!?

 These three items make 
these awesome fire starters!! 
My sweet hubby is the scout master
and so he has to take his scouts on a camp-out each month.  
We had seen this idea a few years ago at a Preparedness Fair that we attended.  This past January, Tracy and I decided to spend a Saturday afternoon after one of his camp-outs making these, so starting fires on his camp-outs would be easier.
These are amazing and burn 10-15 minutes, 
which is plenty of time to get a good fire going.

This is a FUN project for everyone 
in your family from kids to grand-kids!
So, if you love to go camping and enjoy a good camp fire, or enjoy a camp-fire for ambiance in your back yard, this is a great thing to make using things we all having lying around our homes!

Also, great to use for getting coals started for Dutch Ovens  
and these would make great gifts for the men in your life

 Also, would be great to have some of these in your 72 hour kits,
OR, to give your married kids as part of a Christmas, Birthday or Mother's/Father's Day Gift.

Things needed
 ...egg cartons
 ...dryer lint 
(save all of your dryer lint for a week or two each time you clean your lint screen
...old candle wax 
(we melted down wax from old scented candles we don’t burn anymore)

(BTW...when I decided to start saving lint, I couldn't find any containers I wanted to donate to the cause and we had just rinsed out this container and so that is why I used this...I mean this is a recycling project, so this fit the job perfectly)

What to do:
Fill egg carton containers with dryer lint
Pour melted wax coating dryer lint/egg containers well

When cooled, cut individual egg cartons apart and put in a container and enjoy recycled fire starters all throughout the year.

We just took an Epson Salt container that had a nice lid and Tracy made a sturdy rope handle and he painted it red and every time we head on a camp out, we grab our container of fire starters.

Have fun being 
resourceful and recycling...
it feels good to re-purpose things in a useful way! 

5 comments:

CB said...

This really is a super idea Kimmie!! Especially for storage!!

But I have to laugh because there is the old scout joke about fires being started with plenty of "Scout Water" aka Lighter fluid!! I have seen more than a few older scouts pretend like they were urinating into the fire with the "Scout Water" and making it magically light, etc...(Boys can be so gross!).

I bet Tracy loves being a ScoutMaster and having the wonderful opportunity (wink!) of taking the Scouts on a campout once a month!!

Connie said...

Wow, Kimmie! I love it. It's simple to do and yet so good to have. I have a lot of lint too. Thanks for sharing this idea.

Welcome to the Garden of Egan said...

Such a good idea! Sometimes it's hard to get wood started for my wood stove. This would be great and smell good too.

You are most resourceful!
Good for Tracy being the scoutmaster. Howie did that for years.

Hope you are enjoying the warm weather and sunshine as much as I am.
Do you have the garden planted yet?

Cristie said...

What a great idea. This would be perfect for camping. Thanks for sharing!

C Smith said...

That is awesome. Trav is a pretty good scout and can usually get a fire going pretty quick but how easy is that! I am totally going to make these for our camp trips and non fires.