Advent - Day 7
Dec. 7th, 2008 07:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyburgHow to make a gift with something you have around the house. (Version 2.0)
Go collect all the candle stubs from the house. Ask your friends and family if they have some leftover from the Thanksgiving tables and what not.
Go to a lumber yard and ask for a trashbag of sawdust.
Then go thrift store shopping for a few items you won't mind trashing:
A kettle that you can put all the wax in, and then pour out of.
A set of muffin tins - the more bashed up, the better.
If someone donated an opened package of cupcake liners, sweet. Otherwise, find some on sale.
Go to the local cemetery (preferably right after a good wind) and find small pinecones or other seed pods (liquid amber trees are my favorite), and bring a bag of them home.
To assemble:
Find a place you can lay down newspapers and work without involving animals or small children. This is not a child's project.
Set out the muffin tins, line with the cupcake liners and fill with sawdust.
Carefully melt down the candle stubs in the kettle - one my oldest family friends who does this every year? Yup, caught the place on fire - even with all that experience. Be careful and don't get distracted.
Do not allow the wax to get too hot, and don't worry about the impurities like tabs or wixes - you can fish them out later.
Pour over prepared tins to soak the sawdust, but don't overfill. Top with a seedpod before it hardens - make nice-nice.
World's best firestarters. Good for anyone with a fireplace, earthquake kit or camping box. Take a brown paper sack and fill it up - use a rubber stamp to put some designs on the bag, then punch some holes near the top and close with a threaded piece of twine or string.
See you tomorrow!
Go collect all the candle stubs from the house. Ask your friends and family if they have some leftover from the Thanksgiving tables and what not.
Go to a lumber yard and ask for a trashbag of sawdust.
Then go thrift store shopping for a few items you won't mind trashing:
A kettle that you can put all the wax in, and then pour out of.
A set of muffin tins - the more bashed up, the better.
If someone donated an opened package of cupcake liners, sweet. Otherwise, find some on sale.
Go to the local cemetery (preferably right after a good wind) and find small pinecones or other seed pods (liquid amber trees are my favorite), and bring a bag of them home.
To assemble:
Find a place you can lay down newspapers and work without involving animals or small children. This is not a child's project.
Set out the muffin tins, line with the cupcake liners and fill with sawdust.
Carefully melt down the candle stubs in the kettle - one my oldest family friends who does this every year? Yup, caught the place on fire - even with all that experience. Be careful and don't get distracted.
Do not allow the wax to get too hot, and don't worry about the impurities like tabs or wixes - you can fish them out later.
Pour over prepared tins to soak the sawdust, but don't overfill. Top with a seedpod before it hardens - make nice-nice.
World's best firestarters. Good for anyone with a fireplace, earthquake kit or camping box. Take a brown paper sack and fill it up - use a rubber stamp to put some designs on the bag, then punch some holes near the top and close with a threaded piece of twine or string.
See you tomorrow!
