christmas crafting

/ my collection of crafty fire starters /

yes, it is summer here (so not much use for fire starters right now), but the holidays are a perfect time to do some crafting for christmas presents! when i stayed with my friend emma a few months ago, she ran out of fire starters, so i decided to try to make one like i had read about, only prettier. i gathered whatever little bits and pieces of sticks and dust and paper i could find, melted down some tea candles and put it all in a cupcake paper and voila! i wasn't there when she used it, but she said it worked really well. so the other day i went to the recycled arts centre (one of my favourite places in palmy) and picked up 4 used candles and an ice cream container full of pretty dried flowers and sticks and flammable bits and pieces, all for less than a dollar!

i started by putting cupcake papers into all the shot glasses in the house (wayne has quite the collection!) while pieces from one of the used candles were melting over a pot of water on the stove. in the bottom of each paper, i stuffed a bunch of dryer lint, followed by some dried leaves, flowers , sticks and pine cone bits. i then spooned the wax into the paper and when it nearly reached the top, i stuck a last few pieces of the more decorative flammable bits, like the colorful flowers or little pine cones.

i tried to make each one it's own unique mini nature scene, either contrasting or complimenting the colour of the paper. here's one cooling:

once they had cooled enough to move, i put them all into a big egg tray so i could reload the shot glasses with papers. i put a little glitter on some of them before the wax completely set:

that icecream container had so many pretty little pieces in there that i had a different theme for nearly each one. hopefully they will work as well as the first one i made in rotorua!