Candle Making Craft - Pinecone Fire Starters

Here's a candle making craft that's easy yet nice enough to give as a present to friends and family. Of course, the gift recipient needs to have a fireplace scents this craft is a pinecone firestarter.

I suppose that strictly speaking this is not a candle making craft since the end result is not a candle. On the other hand, it does involve wax and a wick so it needs at least a loose definition of a candle - just one that's going to be used to start a fire.

One of the main reasons I want to tell you about this craft is that it's a good way to use up wax left over from other projects or wax you've salvaged from candle stubs or the bottom of container candles.

Because you won't be burning the wax in the candle, the burning characteristics aren't as critical. This means the fact that you might have different types of wax with different additives in the final mix isn't as crucial. The burning characteristics of an improvised land will be rather unpredictable, but that isn't as important in this application.

While you certainly can use virgin wax for the project, it doesn't require it. If you do, I recommend paraffin wax.

The first step is to collect pine cones. If you don't have an appropriate tree on your property, you can usually find them at a park or nature preserve.

Once you're back home with your harvest of pine cones take a length of relatively thick unprimed wick and, beginning at the wide base of the cone, wind it around the cone toward the top. Work it between the segments of the cone as you go. At the top of the cone, tie a loop of around the top of the cone. Then cut the wick, leaving it a few inches long (in a moment, you'll be dipping the cone in wax so you'll want a length of wick to hold onto).

Once the cones are prepared, it's time to melt the wax. If you're using wax remnants (candle stubs, etc.) you may want to sort the wax according to color and/or fragrance. This allows you a bit more control over the appearance and scent of the final project.

For example, if you melt white and ivory and varied shades of red candle stubs together it will be relatively easy to add dye to tint the wax a pleasing shade of red. On the other hand, if you mix red, purple, yellow, blue and green candle stubs together it will be difficult to produce anything other than a grayish tint.

This is a good project to add scent to. It won't really be noticed when the starters are used to light a fire, but many people store them in a basket close to the fireplace so they add scent to the room prior to being used. Pine, balsam and other forest scents appeal to many people, but obviously you can use any scent you'd like.

The procedure is similar to dipping candles. Melt the wax, add the desired dye and fragrance, mix well then repeatedly dip the pinecones into the wax.

For the initial "priming" dip, I suggest you melt the wax to 180 to 190°. After that, you can let the wax cool slightly so it will build up more quickly. Again, because we aren't burning these as candles, factors such as separation of the layers between dips and so on are as important.

Once you feel the waxes thick enough, let it cool, trim the wick to about three fourths of an inch and you're done.

By the way, I think this is a good family project for children old enough to be around hot wax. They enjoy the outing to collect the pinecones as much as making something useful and attractive with them.

Have fun with this candle craft!

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