When glamping in Colorado you quickly realize that starting a camp fire is one of the easiest tasks to do. The dry, resin filled branches, pinecones and needles make the best fire starters around. Sometimes, though, the surrounding flora may be too wet to help with the fire. Thanks to my friend, Anita, I now have something to help out with that.
Pinecones dipped in wax!
This is a great idea, and easy to make. We even scented the wax with citronella essential oils– to help fend off those pesky bugs. Here is how we made the fire starters.
First you need to gather up old candles. If you do not have candles, try looking at the local thrift store. You will also need a medium sized, old, sauce pan to melt the candles in. Set up a double-boiler system, with water in the bottom pot, and your candles in the top pot. There is no need to boil the water, just let it get hot.
Once your wax is melted add some essential oil for a nice fresh scent. Use metal tongs to place 3-4 pinecones in the pot of wax. I rolled them around in the pot, used a tong to pick them up and give a gentle shake, then placed each cone on a piece of cardboard to dry.
Once I finished dipping all of the cones, I let a few hours go by, reheated the wax, and did another quick dip. This way the pinecones were thick with wax, and I had no leftovers.
Because the pinecones smell so good, we leave them out in the Airstream for both decoration and for the nice fresh scent.
Happy glamping everyone!
What timing Sara! My wife and I have just moved back to Florida and are getting our house back in shape after having been gone for 6 years. One of the things we love to do here, now that the seasons are starting to turn (ok, not like Chicago or CO! humour me!) is to sit outside on our porch and have a fire. She was just mentioning getting citronella candles for the porch. I’ll forward this story and I bet you we’ll be scouring our property for pinecones and making candles this weekend, both for the aroma and as a fire starter. We even had a leftover pot from our garage sale that will be perfect. Thanks so much!
That does sound like good timing! I bet if you picked up some inexpensive, unscented, candles from Walmart you could add a lot of citronella to them to help with the bugs. I was thinking that you could pour the wax into a small, terracotta, pot (planter). We have an outdoor candle that has citronella and lavender— goodness that one smells great!
I’m sure the pinecone scent will dissipate quickly, once in the fire. But, while it sits inside of the Airstream we are enjoying the smell of the oils.
We also have a very small spray bottle that we mix the citronella oil with water. We spray that on the pup to help her with the bugs.
Thanks for more ideas! Safe travels!