Thrifty Fire Lighters for Woodburning Stoves etc

Okay, we all know that fuel bills are extortionate and there are more and more people switching to other types of heating and woodburning stoves in particular have seen a massive rise in popularity. This is the one we got installed last year;

And no, the fire surround is not made of wood as the fitters first thought! It is actually cast concrete that looks like wood and we bought it from the garden centre! This is a DRU stove 4.9kw, we were looking at a much larger one initially but the man who came to give us the quote told us that most people buy them too large and then only burn them at half capacity which is VERY bad for your stove and clogs up the pipe quickly. It was good advice! We have been burning ours at full capacity every time and our pipe is clean as a whistle.

Woodburning stoves are not cheap- ours was £800. There are ones out there waaaaaayyy cheaper but we wanted a cast iron one that we could burn day and night if necessary- they have these in Finland doing just that, so we think it was worth the money. It was £900 to get it installed- we did the fire surround ourselves according to the specifications the company gave us. It was a lot of money but probably the best thing we ever did! It has seen us through numerous powercuts, freezing temperatures and to cozy up in front of a real fire every winter evening is just priceless......mmmmm! Luckily we live in the middle of forests on all sides and those nasty January storms blew down a lot of trees, so that's the fuel for next winter already sorted! You do get through a lot of fuel though- if we were relying on bought wood, it is surprisingly expensive- even a small bag of SOFT WOOD (not even the longer burning hard wood!) from ALDI was nearly £4 this last winter, we were shocked at that. So be prepared if you are thinking of having a woodburner installed.

As you can see we have a flat top one (cast iron kettle £30) to cook on which we did do during the 4 day power outage in January this year. I would recommend a flat top one as it has come in so handy- I have even dried pine cones on it to use as firelighters!

Okay so on to the thrifting part.....cheap firelighters/fire starters. I bought quite a few boxes last year at £1.23 and just a few short months later they were up to nearly £1.50 a box, so I decided to do some research and then make my own......and here they are!

They are not super-attractive but they do work as well as the shop-bought firelighters. If you want to make some you will need;

Egg boxes

Cotton wool balls (make sure it is 100% cotton)

Petroleum Jelly (50p from the wholesalers)

Wax (I collect old bits of candles and use them)

An old pan

An old spoon

So use the old pan in a pan of boiling water to melt the wax in, this takes a while depending on the amount of wax that you have to melt! Take two or three cotton wool balls per egg box section and wipe each in the jar of petroleum jelly and put into the egg box section- just cram them in there, nice blob of the P.J. on each. Then once the wax has melted, use an old spoon to pour some wax on the top of each of them- this will help keep the cotton wool balls together and add some extra punch to your lighters. That's it! Thrifty recycled cheap-o firelighters that actually work and providing you burn your woodburning stove nice and high, will leave no residue on the stove pipe!

My last tip to you is to buy an Eco-fan;

These are expensive- about £90! But they spread the warm air from your stove throughout the house. Before we got ours, the area around the woodburning was roasting, now the whole 3 bed house is warm. They are a good investment. Look for a secondhand one on ebay, if you can get one!

Best Wishes to You and Yours

Alison X

Welcome to the first ever blog from Fyne Country Crafts on the edge of Loch Fyne in the Scottish Highlands! I want to create a blog that focuses on crafting, thrifting, growing your own vegetables and just random things that make life so good.
I have been running my craft business from home for 4 years now and I love each and every day of it, waking up wondering what I might create today- and as any crafter will tell you, some days are better than others. Some days the ideas just flow and other days, well...those are the days I tidy up the craft room/studio :-)
I love a wide variety of crafts, main ones being sewing, knitting, writing on rice jewellery and my latest guilty pleasure- needle felting....soooo addictive!
I will start my blog with an intro to my business and the items that I sell....
Here is an example of my name on rice jewellery;

I sell these on eBay and Etsy and at craft fairs, having been inspired by the ones that I have bought over the years- I have ones that I bought in the Forbidden City in Beijing, China from over 10 years ago and they are still going strong! It is very lucky to have your name written on a grain of rice, so I find that I sell loads of these! Here are some samples of rice that I have written on;

The most I have ever written on a grain of rice is "HAPPY MOTHERS DAY" and that was on ONE SIDE of the rice grain! It does take a lot of practice but I enjoy it very much.
It really is like creating a piece of miniature art- the picture above is of real dried flowers and to give you an idea of size, the glass pendant is just over 3cm in length! I love finding new miniature items to go into my pendants, as well as the pretty glitters and real dried flowers.
I get a lot of requests for memorial pendants too, especially ones for pets and even quite a few sadly for little babies who were born asleep :-( But also plenty for happy occasions too, such as birthdays, anniversaries and even marriage proposals!!
Here's another couple of photos for those interested;

I have customers from all over the world for these and I love the fact that when people ask me what I sell they are always surprised! Anyway, enough of my rice pendants, if you would like to buy one, then click one of the links below;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Name-Rice-Grain-Pendants-Glass-Vial-Glitter-Real-Flowers-3-10-/251014363337?pt=UK_Home_Garden_Celebrations_Occasions_ET&var=&hash=item8014c59e29
http://www.etsy.com/listing/93792739/rainbow-flowers-name-on-rice-beautiful
I also sell lots of pin cushions- cats, pandas, cute ones and all with decorative bead pins! I have also started selling the sewing patterns to my items recently too- so get crafting! Here are some of my pin cushions;

Again, these are available on eBay and Etsy as are the sewing patterns if you want to make your own- and they do make GREAT sellers at craft fairs, especially when you get a load of them made up in different fabrics and arranged nicely on the table. Apart from pin cushions, I sew a number of different items, including these- a Family of Christmas Puddings and a Family of Pumpkins;

I even scent the Pumpkins and the Puddings with fragrance oils! They smell divine and when you have a set of 3 smelling like Pumpkins and Christmas Puddings, then they really bring the season into your home. They are quite fiddly to make- the Puddings especially but I love hand sewing so much and my sewing machine hasn't seen the light of day for years now- I even sew curtains by hand! I also made this quilt by hand- it took soooo long to do and now I can't part with it, the colours and the fabrics just make me happy :-)

As you can see, there are a lot of little squares to sew! It is also the background to the Fyne Country Crafts logo and probably the best thing I have ever made (yeah, I'm proud of this one!)

But my latest crafting addiction is NEEDLE FELTING! Honestly, I was surprised too. I had a bought a Toadstools Felting kit from Panduro Hobby website and like many things I buy, it lay dormant for many months until one day I picked it up to have a "stab" (sorry, couldn't resist) and 6 hours later, I was still stabbing the wool! I find it so relaxing and it really is just like meditation. Please give it a go! Here are some of my creations;

That last photo is of my Clover needle felting mat- buy it from Quilt Direct as the large size is only £11.90....they are about £18 on ebay! I started out with the foam pad in the Toadstools kit I got but soon that started disintegrating and I was getting tiny pieces of white foam mixed into my pieces- most annoying! Do you like the pink craft mat? :-) So girly, every crafter should have one!
The item on the felting mat (it's like a brush really) is one of my owls with a felting needle sticking out of his side. If you are wondering how felting works the needle have little jagged pieces that catch the fibres of the wool as they go in and basically tying them together so you start out with a handful of wool and start stabbing it with the needle and gradually it takes shape.
You really can make anything - gorgeous jewellery (that's what I'm doing after the owls!), little creatures, pictures, or even miniature teddy bears like in the first photo- that little guy is only 4.5cm high! That took me a very long time - even the tiny honey pot took several hours- the letters are stitched on and measure 2mm in height. I will let you know how my latest projects are coming alonga shortly.
So that is the end of my very first blog, I hope you've enjoyed it and please feel free to drop me a line if you have any comments - good or bad- or any questions.
Best Wishes to you and yours
Alison X