Easy Homemade Firelighters

We have our wood heater going almost constantly over winter, it is so nice to be able to curl up on the couch on a cold winter’s day and watch the fire! It’s also great to come home to a warm house in the winter. Even when the fire has died right down it still puts out enough heat to keep the house reasonably warm. As the weather starts to warm up though we are able to let the fire go out during the day more and more often. This means that we start to use more firelighters to get the fire started in the evenings.

We have normally bought firelighters and find that they work quite well but they can be messy and expensive. A while back I saw a link on Pinterest showing a method for making your own firelighters and I have been keen to give it a try ever since. Now that we are using more I thought that it was the perfect time to give it a try myself.

I had a look around online at what others had tried but as usual I was looking for the easiest and cheapest way to make my own firelighters. When I found a link that suggested using old teabags and leftover candle wax I decided to give it a try. We throw out a few teabags each week so it would be great if I could reuse these and turn them into firelighters.

I also thought that this would be a clever way to use up all the old birthday candles that we have stored away in the pantry. I mean you only use birthday candles once, maybe twice and then they sit in the cupboard after that don’t they? You put them away because they are still useable but when the next birthday comes around you end up buying new candles because newer ones look better or because you just can’t find the old ones when you need them! Well now all those used birthday candles can have a new use!

I can highly recommend these homemade firelighters. Not only do they find a good use for something that would have ended up at the landfill; they work really well! Just pop them in the fire and top with some dry sticks or kindling wood and then light them up. They definitely burn really well and they last long enough to get the sticks or kindling going.

How to Make Your Own Firelighters

You will need:

used teabags that have been allowed to dry out
old used birthday candles (or even left over bits of any type of candle would work)
small cupcake liners
cupcake baking tray

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 °C (350 °F).
Line the holes of the baking tray with cupcake liners.
Chop up or break up a couple of birthday candles into each hole.
Place tray into the oven for 10 minutes.
Remove from oven (caution – melted wax will be hot) and place one teabag into each of the wax filled cupcake liners and allow the teabag to absorb the melted wax.
Allow to cool for a couple of minutes before using tweezers to remove liners with teabag.
Place onto a sheet of baking paper until fully cooled.
Store in an airtight container until needed.

Here is where I found the suggested use of teabags:

The Green Home: HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE FIRELIGHTERS

Here are a couple of other links with ideas for making firelighters:

Kate’s Creative Space: Homemade Pinecone Firelighters

Dukes and Duchesses: Homemade Fire Starters for Camping